Bell grinned. “Maybe a little.”
“Maybe a lot,” Casey said. “This is light-years bigger than anything we’ve ever worked, but we got some good stuff for you, and one thing you’re going to hate.”
“First, meet my partner,” I said. “Detective MacDonald, these are the two guys I shanghaied, Detectives Casey and Bell.”
Head nods all around.
“Okay,” I said, “what’ve you got?”
“We found one of those folding shopping carts in the trees alongside the Sixty-Fifth Street transverse,” Casey said. “Those things are valuable commodities around here, so it couldn’t have been there for long, or somebody would have scooped it up. You said Parker-Steele disappeared on Friday, so he didn’t kill her in the park. He killed her someplace else and dumped her here.”
Dryden had already told us that, but I let them go on.
Bell picked up the narrative. “Our best guess is that after he killed Parker-Steele, he stuffed her in a bag, drove her to this neighborhood, and parked his car somewhere nearby.”
“Can you guys check with Traffic for any parking tickets that were issued within a ten-block radius of key entry points?” Kylie said. “East and west sides.”
“Will do, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Bell said. “Parking is a bitch during the day, but after ten p.m., there are lots of legal spaces he could have used.”
“So he parked his car nearby,” I said. “Then what do you figure?”
“He loaded the body into the shopping cart and walked through the park as invisible as any of the homeless guys who roam the city streets,” Casey said. “That’s the way me and Bell have been blending in. Then he cut the lock on the gate, strapped her on the horse, hot-wired the electric panel to get the music and the carousel going, relocked the gate, dumped the shopping cart, hopped over the stone wall, and walked along the transverse back to his car.”
The two of them stood there looking at us like puppy dogs who had just fetched a stick and were waiting for a pat on the head.
“Good job,” I said. “You see anybody that looked suspicious in the crowd?”
They turned to each other and laughed.
“Everybody in that crowd looks suspicious,” Bell said. “A dead woman in a Hazmat suit on a carousel is like a magnet for wackos. For the killer to stand out, he’d have to be wearing a sign that says ‘I did it.’”
“Hey!… Hey! You!”
I turned around. Two men scooted under the crime scene tape and headed straight for Kylie and me.
“What the hell kind of crap are you guys trying to pull?” one of them yelled.
“Hang on to your hat, Detective Jordan,” Casey said.
“You know these guys?” I asked.
“We just met them ten minutes ago. Remember I said there’s one thing you’re going to hate? Here it comes.”
Chapter 12
“Their names are Donovan and Boyle,” Casey said. “They’re acting like jerks, going around telling everybody that they’re—”
“I know what they’re telling everybody,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll handle it.”
Kylie grabbed my arm. “Zach, I’m in a foul mood. Let me take it out on somebody besides you.”
“Be my guest,” I said, and stepped aside.
Donovan and Boyle stormed across the lawn and stopped in front of us. Before they could say a word, Kylie went on the attack.
“What the hell do you two clowns think you’re doing?” she said. “Back off. This is a crime scene.”
One of them was tall, over six feet, with dark hair and a pretty-boy face. The other was shorter, with thin lips and a buzz cut—not nearly as pretty. I still didn’t know who was who.
“Our crime scene,” Buzz Cut said. “I’m Boyle, that’s Donovan. We’ve been running the Hazmat case.”
“From what I hear, you’ve been running it into the ground. Effective an hour ago, it’s ours.”
“Says who?”
“My boss, Captain Delia Cates, her boss, Police Commissioner Richard Harries, and his boss, the mayor.”
“This is bullshit,” Boyle said. “Why the hell were we pulled off?”
“You weren’t pulled off,” Kylie said. “The case was reassigned to NYPD Red. I’m MacDonald, that’s Jordan, and you’ve been assigned to our task force.”
“We work for you?” Donovan asked.
“You have a problem with that, Detective Donovan?” Kylie said.
“You’re damn right I do.”
“In that case, send everything you’ve got on the Hazmat Killer to our office. We’ll take it from there.”