Page 59 of Kill For Me Kill For You
Farrow
By the time their NYPD pool car pulled up at the brownstone, the forensics technicians were packing up their equipment at the rear door of their van.
Hernandez killed the engine and got out of the Crown Vic at the same time as Farrow. Even though his feet touched the blacktop in concert with Hernandez, it took Farrow a lot longer to straighten up. His lower lumbar disc problem that had been steadily getting worse was now almost unmanageable. There were good days and bad days. Of late, mostly bad days. He waited until the pain passed. His first movements were slow, but he knew he would loosen up when he started to move around.
Karen Hernandez was already yammering with the forensics tech by the time Farrow took his first step onto the sidewalk. A black-and-white and another unmarked squad car were parked along the curb outside the house. Silently, the flashing berries and cherries from the top of the patrol car sent blue and red light around the street. There was no ambulance, and no sign of the medical examiner yet. At any murder scene in New York, the medical examiner was the one who arrived in the most expensive car. Mercedes or BMW, sometimes an Audi.
With no expensive German engineering in sight, Farrow thought it likely he’d beaten the ME to the punch. He took another couple of steps and felt the burning in his back just as a mild distraction, and the pain in his right leg had gone. The longer he stood, the easier it would get.
He heard heavy metallic doors slam, and saw the forensic techs making their way to the front of the vehicle, the rear doors now closed. Hernandez came back to give him an update.
‘Who was the tech on scene?’ asked Farrow.
‘Belucci,’ said Hernandez.
‘Good. He’s thorough. Did they get anything?’
‘Not much, by the looks of things. We won’t know until they get lab results back.’
‘I won’t get my hopes up. Let’s go inside.’
There was a patrolman in uniform standing at the front door of the brownstone with a clipboard in his hand. Hernandez and Farrow ducked under the tape, made their way up the steps and showed their ID to the officer. He entered their names in the scene log and said, ‘Statler and Waldorf are out back.’
Hernandez rolled her eyes, and the patrolman stifled a smile.
Farrow and Hernandez entered the home. A neat hallway, with a shoe rack and an umbrella stand. There was only a pair of boots and a pair of sneakers on the rack. Both pairs belonged to a male they guessed, by their size and color.
They passed by a lounge on the right. A TV sat silently in front of a leather couch. On the left they found a kitchen diner. A row of copper pots and pans hung from a ceiling fixture above a kitchen island with a built-in hob. It looked like an expensive kitchen, with double ovens and lots of cupboard space and a wall taken up with shelves of cookbooks. Yet the décor and the books had a decidedly male slant. A row of kitchen knives displayed on the wall, clinging to a magnetic strip.
‘Somebody sure liked to cook,’ said Hernandez as they made their way toward the open back door. Stopped.
Broken glass lay on the floor from the busted kitchen window. Carefully, they stepped over it.
‘Look familiar?’ said Hernandez.
Farrow wasn’t sure yet. Mr. Blue-eyes entered his victim’s homes from the rear, breaking a window in the kitchen to gain access. This time, one of the windows above the washbasin was broken. Ragged shards of glass still clung to the frame. The window beside it remained closed and intact.
‘Doesn’t look like they climbed through the window,’ said Farrow. ‘The glass wasn’t broken for access to the property.’
Opening the back door, Farrow let Hernandez go first, then followed.
The yard was large. Maybe the largest Farrow had seen in Manhattan. A lawn of fifty feet or more, thirty feet wide, with rose bushes on the left-hand side. A brick wall at the rear. A small tool shed sat on the right, on the lawn.
That’s where they found Statler and Waldorf, standing outside the shed. Not their real names of course. Detectives Donnelly and Carter of the 86thPrecinct were well known to most cops in the city. They’d started their beat when Reagan was president. Two old white-haired guys who’d been busting each other’s balls, and everyone else’s, for getting on for forty years.
‘Look what we got here, Saint Jude and his apostle,’ said Donnelly.
Farrow nodded. He’d picked up that nickname some years ago, and in truth he didn’t mind it.
‘Watch yourself, Carter. Therealpolice are here,’ said Donnelly.
‘If they’re therealcops, then I should’ve retired ten years ago,’ said Carter.
‘You did retire ten years ago. They just forgot to tell you,’ said Donnelly.
‘You want to fill us in?’ asked Hernandez.
‘You asking me out on a date, young lady?’ said Donnelly.
