Murder Games Read online

  He was right. Unlike all the other victims, Chadd had never stood trial in front of Kingsman. She had, though, been in one of his courtrooms. She had testified for the defense in a hit-and-run case involving the death of an elderly man mowed down in a crosswalk. As for the defendant’s name, the person she swore under oath she’d never met before? It was Rick Thorsen, the man shot to death with her in the hotel room at Tribeca 212 while in flagrante delicto.

  Leave it to Julian—and SARA—to track down the witness list buried in the Manhattan DA’s 128-bit-encryption file server.

  Sure. It was borderline Rain Man that Kingsman had retained the names of every defendant who had come before him over a nearly thirty-year career on the bench. Even more hard to believe, or so it seemed, was that he hadn’t already made the connection between himself and the victims.

  Elizabeth squinted at Kingsman. “You’ve been following the news about this serial killer, right?” she asked. “The Dealer?”

  “Following would be too strong a word,” he answered. “I’ve seen the headlines.”

  Usually that’s a figure of speech. Not in Kingsman’s case. He literally meant he’d seen the headlines and nothing more.

  “Surely you’ve seen stories about the victims on TV,” said Elizabeth.

  “I don’t own a television,” said Kingsman. “We used to have one in the den that my wife would watch. I got rid of it when she passed. I do read the Times and the Journal, but only the headlines on the front and the pontifications in the back—the editorial pages.”

  I was listening to Kingsman the entire time, but something had caught my eye.

  “What are you staring at, Professor Reinhart?” he asked finally.

  “My book,” I said.

  “Your book?” He looked confused.

  I pointed opposite the couch. “Second shelf on the right.” I stood and walked across his office, then pulled the book from his bookcase, which was caked with dust. Ironically, the book itself was missing its dust jacket. I held up the spine so he could read the title, Permission Theory, along with my name. “That’s me,” I said.

  “So it is,” said Kingsman. He still looked confused.

  “You haven’t actually read the book, have you?” I asked.

  “I didn’t even know I owned it,” he said. “What’s it about?”

  “Abnormal behavior,” I answered.

  The corners of his mouth tilted upward, a slight smile. “Abnormal behavior. I always found that term to be a bit redundant.”

  Good line. “Me, too,” I said.

  “So what is it?” he asked. “This permission theory of yours?”

  “You’ll have to take my class, Your Honor,” I answered. “For now, let’s just say it addresses the reasons why someone would be killing people who were indicted for serious crimes but ultimately found not guilty in your courtroom.”

  I was all prepared to continue. That was merely my opening statement. Hell, it wasn’t even a question.

  But Judge Arthur Kingsman still had the answer.

  Chapter 76

  “HELPLESSNESS,” HE said. “The most dangerous people in the world are the ones who think they’ve run out of options.”

  “So they invent their own,” I said. “They grant themselves permission.”

  Kingsman nodded. “The very nature of vigilante justice.”

  The cases were all legal layups. At least that’s how they looked on paper. Reams of evidence and corroborating witness testimony for the prosecution and the Matterhorn of uphill battles for the defense.

  Then again, not all defense attorneys are created equal. At a thousand dollars an hour, some aren’t even really lawyers. They’re magicians.

  Jared Louden, victim zero on the Dealer’s kill list, had been caught dead to rights bribing and extorting people in exchange for insider information on behalf of his hedge fund. The recordings made of Louden revealed him to be ruthless, malicious, and borderline pathological. But it wasn’t the feds who secretly planted the bug in his office. It was an employee acting as a whistle-blower. His name was Bob.

  Problem was, the feds didn’t carefully read Bob’s employment contract. Louden’s defense team certainly did. During the trial, Judge Kingsman ruled that while Bob was “trying to do the right thing,” he had indeed violated the morals clause of his employment contract with Louden’s firm. Anything recorded on that bug was therefore inadmissible. Sorry, Bob. Nice try, feds.

  And if it wasn’t a high-priced lawyer pulling a legal rabbit out of a hat, it was a rookie cop making a rookie mistake. He left out a line from his Miranda warning to Bryce VonMiller after arresting the spoiled punk for selling Ecstasy on a playground. That’s right. A playground.

  Technicalities, loopholes, perversions of the law. They were the get-out-of-jail-free cards at one time or another for all the victims. Now, whether a few years later or many, the Dealer was making them pay. Did he know that Rick Thorsen was never carjacked, as he claimed—that he was the one who ran over that elderly man in the crosswalk with his BMW? Or that the woman who came forward as a witness—Cynthia Chadd—was actually his mistress?

  He had to have known. Just as he had to have known that Colton Lange, while still in high school, had raped a girl at a party even though the rape kit from the hospital was ruled inadmissible by Kingsman. Once the lab technician stopped to go to the bathroom and left the kit unattended outside his stall, the chain of custody could no longer be verified.

  So it went with all the trials, all the way back to Jackie Palmer and the negligent homicide indictment that came a decade later. The smoking-gun hair sample was disallowed, and yet another not-guilty verdict was rendered.

  “I do what the law tells me to do,” said Kingsman, slumping back in his chair. He removed his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s not always what my conscience tells me, and sometimes it’s not even what a jury tells me. I’ve overruled them before.”

  “Because you thought you were doing the right thing?” asked Elizabeth.

  “What is the right thing?” asked Kingsman. “Is it what I think? What you think? What the judge in the next courtroom thinks? That’s why we have laws in the first place, Detective, and no law can protect the innocent without occasionally helping the guilty. I offer no apology for that.”

  “We didn’t come here for an apology,” I said, sliding my book back onto the shelf. “We came here to stop a murder, and, if past is prologue, there’s not a lot of time. What we want from you is your help.”

  “The queen of hearts, that’s the next victim,” said Elizabeth. “Assuming it’s not you, Your Honor, then who is it? What was the case? Who was on trial?”

  Kingsman thought for a few seconds.

  “Here,” he said finally. “This is the key to everything.”

  Chapter 77

  “THERE’S NOTHING more I could find,” said the man in the black turtleneck sitting across from Edso Deacon in the stretch limo driving through lower Manhattan, the tinted double-pane windows blocking out the bustle and noise of the city at night.

  Nothing more he could find?

  The mayor stared back at the man as if he didn’t hear him, something he did a lot when he got answers he didn’t like. This answer, in particular, he despised.

  “Do you know where the expression tit for tat comes from?” asked Deacon, picking a piece of lint from the sleeve of his Kiton K-50 suit. “Some people think it’s a shortened version of this for that. Others think it derives from the fencing term tap for tap, which would make sense from a standpoint of retaliation. Still others believe it to be less adversarial and more about equality. They point to the French culinary expression tant pour tant, which refers to a mix of equal parts of fine sugar and ground almonds. Which one makes the most sense to you?”

  “I don’t know,” said the man.

  Deacon nodded. “That’s okay,” he said. “Do you know why it’s okay?” He leaned forward in his seat, clasping his hands over his knees as his jaw t
ightened. “Because I didn’t pay you to tell me that.”

  “Mr. Mayor—”

  “Shut up,” said Deacon. “You said you could get more on Dylan Reinhart if I paid you more. So that’s what I did.”

  “Do you want the money back?”

  “I want what I fucking paid for!” screamed Deacon.

  A lot of men would’ve reacted somewhere between wincing and wetting their pants after being yelled at by the mayor of the country’s largest city, especially a mayor as wealthy and connected as Deacon. The man in the black turtleneck, however, barely blinked. He was untouchable, and they both knew it. Most former Mossad agents are. Once a member of the Israeli intelligence community, always a member—with all the book of Exodus protection that went with it. An eye for eye, a tooth for tooth…

  “Do I have to explain it again?” the man asked calmly.

  No, he didn’t. Deacon heard him the first time.

  Finding out that Dylan Reinhart had been CIA was just as much of a fluke as it was a result of brilliant hacking. The brilliant part was penetrating a beta test for a new software program that would allow the CIA to gather and cross-reference server activity from multiple Internet providers without detection.

  The fluke part was the supposedly innocuous files inserted into the test. In what was a collection of deleted e-mails addressing such delicate matters of national security as the rules of an office football pool and directions to a 2016 holiday party at Mr. Nick’s restaurant in Langley, there also somehow managed to be a highly classified pension-payout list for a handful of former field agents stationed in London.

  Even the best coders aren’t immune to a good old-fashioned fuckup.

  “Are you sure you tried everything?” asked Deacon.

  The man, who went by the name of Eli, nodded. “Everything and then some,” he said. “We know that Reinhart was in the field and that his cover was the fellowship at Cambridge. As for what he did, any assignments, that’s another can of beans, one that cannot be opened.”

  “Worms,” said Deacon. “Another can of worms—that’s the expression.”

  “Whatever,” said Eli. “That can can’t be opened, either.”

  “So you say.”

  “Why is this information so important to you? Why must you know?”

  “Because if Reinhart is who you say he is, there’s hardly anything he can’t also know about me,” said Deacon.

  Eli smiled, his teeth stained by years of nicotine and neglect. “You Americans and your mutually assured destruction,” he said. “Everything is a Cold War to you.”

  No, you idiot. Everything is an election. That’s what Deacon wanted to say. The only reason he and Eli, or whatever his real name was, were even sharing the same air was because Deacon had secretly funneled money to a key member of the Likud party for his election campaign to the Knesset. In return, Deacon was given access to the likes of Eli and an untraceable source of intelligence.

  Tit for tat.

  So much for that, though. Deacon pinched the skin of his forehead, as if that somehow could relieve the pressure. It couldn’t.

  He hadn’t lied to Eli. Having dirt on Reinhart was a savvy political move, no matter how paranoid it was.

  But it was what he hadn’t told Eli. Deacon wasn’t convinced that the link between Reinhart and the Dealer didn’t go beyond the professor’s precious little book. Maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with Reinhart’s CIA past.

  All the mayor knew for sure was that he wasn’t ruling anything out. Except, of course, his reelection if the killings continued.

  Chapter 78

  DR. AMY BENSEN slowly opened her eyes, her vision a hazy mix of light and shadow. She didn’t know where she was or what had happened. The last thing she remembered after feeding her cat in the kitchen was the jolt of fear and the hand that covered her mouth before she could scream. Someone had broken into her apartment.

  Oh, God, no. He’s still here.

  The lights and shadows were now shapes and movement. Actually, one shape and a single movement. Back and forth. Back and forth. A figure pacing before her at the foot of the bed. Like a Polaroid from hell, his face gradually came into focus. His eyes. His nose.

  That smile.

  She wanted to scream, but she was gagged. She wanted to run, but she was bound. She was stretched on her back, spread-eagled, each arm and leg tied to a post of the canopy bed she had bought in Paris a couple of years ago and had shipped back to Manhattan. The bed was a gift to herself after she’d been named the first female chief cardiologist at Bricknell Medical Center, in Brooklyn. Score one for the ladies.

  “Wakey, wakey, Dr. Bensen,” said the Dealer.

  More details began to trickle back to her. She could feel the hand slapped over her mouth to stop her from screaming, followed by the other hand over her nose. Chloroform, for sure. That’s how he knocked her out. That’s how she ended up in her bed.

  He’s going to rape me.

  She was sure of it. He’d already removed her blouse. Her bra as well. She was naked from the waist up. It was only a matter of time before he removed her skirt and underwear. He probably wanted her awake for that part…and every part of the nightmare that was sure to follow.

  Dr. Bensen started to cry. She cried because she knew she couldn’t scream. Because she knew she couldn’t escape. Because the feeling was something she’d never truly felt in her entire accomplished life. Helplessness.

  The Dealer walked to the side of the bed, staring curiously at the tears falling from the sides of her eyes. So many tears. He reached down, catching one on his index finger. For a few seconds, he simply gazed at the wetness.

  “You never did cry in court, did you, Doctor?” he said. He then slowly licked the tear from his finger and smiled again.

  That smile.

  She had seen it before, hadn’t she? She had seen him before. It was all coming back to her now. No mere trickle. A sudden wave. She was suddenly drowning in a memory she had tried so hard to forget.

  “It was so long ago. That’s what you tell yourself, isn’t it?” said the Dealer. “That voice inside your head, so willing to assure you that you’re a different person now, that all is forgiven. It’s almost as if you’ve forgotten all about it.” He leaned down, so close to her ear that she could feel the heat of his breath. It was like fire. “That’s why I’m here, Doctor. Because you need reminding. People need to be reminded.”

  As he turned and walked away from the bed, Dr. Amy Bensen realized that she was wrong. She wasn’t about to be raped. She was about to be murdered. And the second he returned, the very moment she saw what was in his hands, she knew exactly how he was going to do it.

  How fitting…

  Chapter 79

  “ANYTHING?” ASKED Elizabeth.

  “No,” I answered. “You?”

  She shook her head, pushed her hair back behind her ears, and pulled out the next file. Between the two of us we’d already gone through ten boxes. There were twenty more to go. A long day was becoming an even longer night.

  Judge Kingsman had called it the key to everything. It was. But only in the literal sense—so far. He’d handed us his key for a small locker at a self-storage facility in Yonkers, about twenty minutes north of his home. In the locker were thirty large boxes containing files of every case he’d presided over in the past thirty years. That was it. That was everything. There was nothing else Kingsman kept in the locker besides the files.

  There was something not quite right about it all. I just couldn’t figure out what.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t obvious. The boxes were organized by year, and the files within them were alphabetized according to the last name of the defendant. Within minutes, Elizabeth and I had easily found the files for each of the victims. They were right where they were supposed to be in their respective boxes.

  So what is it? What’s not right?

  There was nothing out of the ordinary in terms of the labeling or the folders themselv
es. They were all the same color, that typical drab green.

  Beyond the alphabetizing there was no system, no further means by which to differentiate one case from another. Murders were mixed in with assaults that were mixed in with drug smuggling, arson, and every conceivable form of racketeering. In the never-ending debate as to whether people are inherently good or evil, this was the mother lode of ammo for the evil argument.

  “Needle in a haystack,” groaned Elizabeth as she put the top back on a box and reached for another. She groaned again. Each box weighed a ton.

  “We should be so lucky,” I said. “At least with a needle in a haystack the needle exists.”

  That was the fear, of course—that we would reach the last box and be no closer to knowing the identity of the queen of hearts.

  In the meantime, all we could do was guess. It was like a game, a brainteaser. We went back and forth. Who’s the queen of hearts?

  “The writer of a romance novel,” I said.

  “A prostitute,” said Elizabeth.

  “A drag queen.”

  “A descendant of royalty.”

  “A female heart surgeon.”

  “A female champion hearts player.”

  “No,” I said. “A female heart surgeon.”

  Elizabeth looked up from the file in her hands to see me looking up from the one in mine. I had opened a new box and was about to go case by case, as with every other box, my thumb moving from tab to tab.

  Only this case was right on top. The file was lying flat on top of all the others. I couldn’t miss it.

  That was the whole point.

  Chapter 80

  WHOOSH.

  We were back in Manhattan, the Upper East Side.

  “No way, not unless you’ve got a goddamn warrant,” said the superintendent, standing in our path at two in the morning and trying his best to sound like a tough son of a bitch. The fact that he was fresh out of bed and wearing a fluffy blue bathrobe with little sailboats on it, however, wasn’t exactly helping his cause.