Page 23 of Circle of Death
I step up close to the front of the desk. “We just need a minute, Captain.”
She looks from me to Margo, then back again. “Who the hell areyou?”
“I’m Lamont Cranston, and this is my wife, Margo Lane.” I feel like I’m replaying the same recording. “We’re private investigators, and we…”
Bates cuts me off. “How did you get up here? If you have a tip, the front desk will handle it.” She sits back down and starts sorting papers. As far as she’s concerned, the conversation is over.
“Captain,” says Margo, “we know there’s a killer loose on the fairgrounds.
And we’re here to offer our help.”
“We understand why you want to keep things quiet,” I add. “But killers like this don’t stop. You know that. Pretty soon, things will be out of control.”
Bates looks up. She’s pure ice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” says Margo. “Two boys, two girls, over the past five days. Ages sixteen to nineteen. Local kids. From Red Hook and Staten Island. Bodies found on the fairgrounds by security before five a.m. Still in the city morgue listed as John and Jane Does, even though you know perfectly well who they are. No notification to the families. All the parents know is that their kids are missing. Maybe runaways. Which is how you want to keep it until after the fair opens.”
Captain Bates stares back from behind the desk. “We don’t need any help,” she says. “If there’s anything going on, we’ll manage it.”
“We could choose to publicize the crimes ourselves,” says Margo. “In the interest of warning the public.”
“And I could have you arrested for criminal obstruction.”
“So you admit that murders have been committed?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
We’re talking to someone who’s stupid or stubborn or both. Or maybe just bending to pressure from above.
“You’re making a mistake, Captain,” I say.
Bates brushes us toward the door with a curt wave. “Close it on your way out, please.”
Clearly, we’re going to have to get our information the old-fashioned way. I don’t need to say a thing to Margo. She knows the drill. Out in the precinct room, I see her pinpoint the target. I duck into the men’s room. It’s smelly, but empty. Five seconds later, I emerge—invisible. By then, Margo is leaning close to a young male detective. She has his full attention, making it easy for me to scoop the file off the corner of his desk and tuck it close to my body, where it disappears, too.
I rematerialize with the file next to Margo in the stairwell as we head toward the lobby. A few seconds later, we’re out the door and walking down 67th Street, heading for home.
“How much do you think Bates really knows?” I ask.
“Not much more than we do,” says Margo. “I think she’s trying to maintain her plausible deniability status.”
“Nothing ever changes with cops,” I say. “Stuck in their ruts and covering their asses.” We stop at the curb at Park Avenue.
“That’s why the world needs the Shadow,” says Margo.
I take her hand and squeeze it as the light changes. “Don’t forget his loyal friend and companion.”
She turns and kicks me in the shin.
CHAPTER 25
BACK HOME IN the front parlor, I open the folder and lay the crime scene photos out on a low table. Hard to look at. There’s a series for each of the four victims. Margo leans in. “My God, Lamont!” We’ve both seen plenty of corpses, but these images are sickening and startling.
Victim A is a teenage boy. He’s lying on a patch of dirt with tracks from heavy equipment running beneath him. There’s a painted wooden survey stake showing in the upper corner. A construction site. His body is splayed at an odd angle, arms and legs bent. His skull has been cratered by a massive blow. His eyes are open and staring.
And his face has been painted with garish green paint. Like some kind of monster.
Margo spreads out the rest of the pictures. The other boy. The two girls. Similar locations. Identical head wounds. Same green faces. Like some sick ritual.
