The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, or OCME, for New York City handled thousands of cases a year. Between Manhattan and the other four boroughs of the city, the population was massive, sitting at about eight and a half million, and in a population that size, quite a lot of people died.
Bodies weren’t brought in just because of murder; anyone who’d died alone was brought to the OCME, as were those who passed from accidental death or suicide. There were thirty-plus full-time medical examiners working for the OCME, along with another sixty-plus assistants and a multitude of support staff, such as forensic pathology, photography, criminology, lab work, tech, clerical and more.
With that kind of personnel, Craig hadn’t been expecting that the ME working the case would be someone he knew well. To his surprise, Dr. Anthony Andrews walked into the reception area to meet with them.
He, Mike and Detective Larry McBride had recently worked together during the “perfect” killings that had gripped the city. Young, energetic, detailed—Dr. Andrews was damned good at his job. Though Craig didn’t think there was much that the ME could say that would help catch the killer, he was still glad that this particular doctor was on the job.
“No one saw anything?” Andrews asked after greeting them. “She was stabbed in broad daylight—and no one saw anything?”
“The best I can figure it,” Craig said, “she was hurrying down the street. She was heading in an easterly direction. She had just shoved the baby into Kieran’s arms and fled the office. Kieran was running after her. She was, at tops, a block behind. Remember, it was rush hour—and that can mean a gridlock of people.”
“Someone snuck up behind the victim,” Mike said.
“Someone who must have followed her to the offices of Fuller and Miro,” Craig said. “The killer moved fast. Partner, you mind?” he asked Mike, taking him by the arm to move him around in front so that Craig could mimic the stabbing as he pictured it had to have happened.
He came up quick, hand strong on his imaginary knife.
“Then,” Mike said, arching, as if he had a knife in his back, “she swirled around. Possibly trying to face her killer.”
“But,” Craig said, “the killer delivered the knife without missing a stride and just kept walking.”
“Kieran said there were no screams—not until she reached the woman and screamed herself. She’d already called the cops and me...there was an officer in uniform there in a matter of minutes and a detective on the scene within ten. I arrived just about the same time as the detective.”
“That would be Lance Kendall—he should arrive momentarily. In the meantime, we’ll proceed as scheduled. One would think that the dead would wait patiently—which they do. However, their loved ones tend to be very emotional and impatient, so we do try to keep up. If you’ll follow me?” Dr. Andrews requested.
Craig was far too familiar with the OCME. The Manhattan offices were close to the FBI building which, in a way, made it too easy to be present for an autopsy, even when it certainly wasn’t always necessary.
Mike must have been thinking along the same lines.
“You know the French Revolution?” he asked Craig softly.
Craig glanced over at him. “Well, I know something about it. I’m not sure I’d want to teach a course on it.”
Mike nodded sagely. “They say that those who had to die, well, they were nobles, and thus they had to behave nobly—and so they went nobly to the guillotine. Madame du Barry screamed and cried and had a fit, and then the people saw how ugly it was. It was only after that they—the people as a mass—began to protest the sanctioned murders.”
“Good thought,” Craig murmured. “We’ve seen enough death. We could have left the autopsy to Lance Kendall.”
“No, I know you. We had to be here no matter what. It just always takes me longer than I’d like to get rid of the feel of this place.”
That was something Craig understood. They worked hard at the morgue—very, very hard. Every floor, every table, every instrument in the place was cleaned and cleaned again; antibacterial agents ruled.
And still the scent of death was strong.
They were offered paper suits and masks; two minutes later, they were in the room where there were actually two autopsies in process.
Their victim waited for them, tragically naked but clean, ready for the knife.
Anthony Andrews adjusted the mic he wore and cleared his throat. He identified their Jane Doe by date and circumstance and stated the date, his own work as the ME, Jerry Sanders as his assistant, and Mike and Craig as witnesses.
And he set to work.
Y incisions were, to the layman—and to Craig this many years into his work—little less than horrendous. The sound of the ribs breaking seemed extremely brutal.
But Craig was also passionate in his belief that the dead did speak. Autopsy was incredibly important. He believed in God or a higher power, and that when the soul was long gone, the body could no longer be hurt. But, it was still hard to watch sometimes.
The process today was the usual. Andrews and his assistant worked over the body. The organs were studied and weighed; samples of blood and stomach contents were taken.
Lance Kendall arrived sometime soon after the first hour. He stood as Mike and Craig did—still and listening. Craig hadn’t met Kendall before he’d arrived at the scene of the murder on Friday, though he did know many of the men with the Major Case Squad of the NYPD. At the crime scene, Kendall had been thorough and detailed—polite to Craig, and making no comments about not needing the FBI for a murder on the street. He was, Craig imagined, ambitious, but didn’t seem the kind to put ambition before results. Of course, Craig had no idea how the man felt about it all now that the case had been handed to a task force and the FBI was taking the lead.
“This is something you need to see,” Dr. Andrews said.
He was inspecting the corpse’s mouth.
They all moved over, one by one, and the ME pointed out the woman’s dental work.
Craig had no idea of what he was looking at—only silver fillings here and there.
He knew that Andrews would explain.
“I believe that this woman is approximately forty—though she does look fifty. She has not, however, recently borne a child, so the baby is not hers. What I was showing you, that isn’t American dental work, and it isn’t new. It was probably done more than ten years ago, and I’d say that it was done somewhere in Eastern Europe—a country that was once part of the Soviet Union or under the Communist bloc, most likely. Russia maybe, the Ukraine...but, then again, maybe Albania or somewhere in the former Yugoslavia. In other words, I do believe she’s of Eastern European descent, but she’s not malnourished. She’s healthy—just worn. I don’t believe she’s taken care of herself well—she’s probably faced tremendous stress to look ten years older than I believe her age to be. She’s worked hard—manually, I believe. Take a look at her hands. Possibly, she worked as a maid. We’re trying for an ID, naturally, through fingerprints. We’ll search through dental records, but I doubt we’ll find local records for her.”
“We are testing to see if she was related to the baby,” Craig said. It wasn’t really a question; it was an obvious action to be taken.
“Of course,” Andrews said. He looked at Lance Kendall. “As your FBI team members noted, the one stab wound in the back that killed her most probably occurred swiftly—she didn’t know what hit her. She staggered toward Miss Finnegan in the street because you instinctively turn when you’re attacked from behind. The attack was planned and fluid—that type of knife isn’t just in everyone’s daily purse or briefcase.”
“So our Jane Doe was followed to the offices of Fuller and Miro. And she went to those offices to hand the baby to Kieran Finnegan. Why?” Kendall asked.
“We don’t know,” Craig said. Andrews cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, I’ve given you what I can. I’ll make sure you all receive a hard copy of the report. If we discover anything else on our end, of course, you’ll be notified.”
“What about ethnicity through DNA?” Craig asked.
“Well, we might be able to pinpoint an area of most likely ancestry,” Andrews said.
“That will be helpful,” Craig said.
“Of course,” Andrews said. “I’ll keep everyone informed on any information that I get. As soon as I have it, naturally.” He stared at them all.
It was their cue to leave. The three of them thanked him and headed toward the building entrance. As they did so, a man was hurrying in. He was very tall and lean, with tawny eyes and sandy hair. He was in a polo shirt and jeans and a jacket. Beneath the jacket, Craig was aware, the man was carrying a weapon.
“LeBlanc?” he asked. “Hank LeBlanc?”
The US Marshal nodded and intros went around. “So we have the whole gang. I imagine we’ll get a counterpart from Homeland Security before this is all over,” LeBlanc said.
“Good,” Kendall responded, his voice vehement. They all looked at him, and he shrugged. “Maybe we’ll get somewhere, working together. As long as we all keep it real—keep the contact going.”
“Sure, yeah. Of course,” LeBlanc said. “I, uh, I’m trying to see if I recognize our dead woman right now, if she might have been one of ours. Informant or witness. We lose them now and then. Except...”
“Except what?” Craig asked.
“She’s not one of ours, I’m pretty sure. I’m here because they want every t crossed on this thing. If she had been ours, we would have known something. Everyone in every local agency knows about this—we all know enough to know we don’t know a damned thing but that someone thinks they’re getting away with murder.”
“Not this time,” Kendall said flatly.
“Nope, not this time,” Mike agreed. “Hell, the best of the best, right? We’re all on it.”
Nods went around.
“We’ll keep it tight,” Mike said. “I’ll be the liaison between agencies—make sure we’re always all up to speed on what’s going on.”
LeBlanc thanked him and headed on in as they continued out to the street.
“So the woman—our dead woman—knew your girlfriend by name,” Kendall said to Craig as they reached the street.
“We established that the other night,” Craig said.
“There has to be a reason,” Kendall said.
“Yes, we actually figured that, too,” Mike said quickly, his tone easy, as if he was afraid that Kendall and Craig might get heated over the facts. “But, as you know, Kieran had never seen the woman before. Of course, we all realize that the woman knew about Kieran somehow—or, perhaps, she knew about Fuller and Miro and knew that Kieran handled a great deal of their therapy and exploratory work. She might have a reputation for having tremendous empathy—as someone who would take care of a baby.”
“And Kieran still can’t think of anything or anyone who might feel that way about her?” Kendall asked Craig.
“No. And it’s driving her crazy.”
“Might have to do with that thing in the subway from a couple of years ago now. Miss Finnegan was all over the news then,” Kendall said.
Craig wasn’t sure why Kendall reminding him of Kieran’s situation in the subway a few years back disturbed him so much. Actually, she had been meant as a target—but a young girl had wound up being pushed and nearly died a horrible death as a train was speeding into the station.
Kieran had caught her. And when assailed by the press, she just murmured, “Anyone would lend a helping hand.”
It became a temporary motto for the city.
Actually, it was a pity it hadn’t seemed to have stuck around longer.
“That is possible,” Mike said.
Craig knew why he was disturbed.
Damn it. The man was right. Maybe whoever this woman was, she remembered the subway incident, too. And she had heard of Kieran and...
If someone could save a baby, maybe it was her?
“I’m not sure it matters how this woman found Kieran. The thing is, she did,” he said gruffly. “But, that it was Kieran she found may not mean a thing. What’s important is that she was brutally cut down on the street after handing the baby over.”
Kendall nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a good thing your girlfriend is smart as a whip as well, warning the building security clerk, calling 9-1-1 and you. Because if you think about it—there were cops already on the way when the woman was stabbed. The killer might have seen them milling on the street. If there hadn’t been cops around and he saw Kieran with the baby, he might have taken the time to retrieve his weapon and attempt to kill Miss Finnegan, as well. After all, at that point, she had the baby.”
Again, Kendall was probably right.
Again, it irritated Craig.
“Yeah. Thank God she’s smart,” he said evenly.
Mike offered Lance Kendall his hand. “Detective, we’ll keep tight on this. The city is in an uproar.” He hesitated and shrugged. “A woman murdered on the street in the middle of a crowd, and a baby involved. We’ll be on it day and night.”
“Ditto. So, we learn anything, we keep one another posted,” Kendall said.
“Yes,” Mike agreed.
Kendall looked at Craig and offered him his hand.
“Detective,” Craig said. He accepted the handshake.
They parted ways. As they started walking, Mike punched Craig in the shoulder.
“Hey!”
“You know, men—and women—in different agencies can be jerks.”
“Yeah, they can.”
“Don’t you be the jerk, huh?”
Craig lowered his head with a half smile on his face.
Mike was right.
He was being a jerk. But a jerk doubly convinced that they had to find a killer—and fast.
He looked at Mike. “How’s your Russian?” he asked.
“Worse than my Spanish,” Mike told him.
“You don’t speak Spanish at all,” Craig reminded him.
“I rest my case. Actually? I’m kind of lying. I do speak some Russian. Had a Russian great-great-grandma who watched after me when I was a kid. Why?”
“I was thinking we might head out to Brighton Beach,” Craig said. They had a friend working at a restaurant out by Brighton Beach pier. Jacob Wolff had been born in America; his mother had been Russian and his dad had been born in Israel. He worked undercover for a division of the FBI linked with Homeland Security—his job was to blend in with the locals so that he could hear all the chatter. Russian mob operations had become a more and more serious factor to the city in the past few years. So far, he’d been able to warn the authorities in time to stop two car bombs and the assassination of a local councilman—all without giving away his cover.
He listened. And when people were comfortable in a place, they tended to speak a little too openly—dismissing a waiter as a nobody.
“What? You don’t think his friends will look at us and think, Well, hell, they’re FBI right off the bat?”
“Not if we go undercover, too.”
Mike groaned. Craig had done a lot of undercover work, changing his look drastically for each assignment. Mike was an up-front, flat-out, find-the-truth kind of a guy.
Dress up wasn’t his thing.
“So swim shorts and Crocs, huh? Enough to look like we’re wannabe beach boys, huh?”
“No one is ever going to call me a boy,” Mike said. He had Craig by a decade and was—as Craig liked to tease him—an old geezer in his midforties.
“Wannabe beach whatevers? Come on, we won’t really be working. I’ll buy you a fizzy drink with an umbrella,” Craig said.
“Don’t you dare.”
Craig grinned. “We’ll head to my apartment.”
“Thought you were mainly living at Kieran’s apartment.”
“Yep, that’s why we’re heading to my place.”
“Think you ought to call her? Let her know that the case is a priority for us and that we’re part of the joint task force?” Mike suggested.
“I’ll let her know,” Craig told him. “I just...”
“What?”
“I just need to try to figure out something to tell her that actually suggests we’re making headway on solving the case.”
* * *
“You know you did it. You can’t keep lying. You stalked her—you stalked her and then you killed her,” Kieran used her fiercest voice, trying to sound like a cop.
Her twin looked at her and arched a brow. He lowered his head, trying to hide a smile. “No,” he said simply.
“We can understand how it happened, how you must have felt—”
“No,” Kevin said again.
“She rejected you. You felt like an ass.”
“No,” Kevin said again.
“You were humiliated. In front of so many people.”
“No, damn you!”
Kevin looked up at her with fire in his eyes. “You idiots. Don’t you understand? I loved her. Whether she did or didn’t love me, I loved her. I would have never hurt her. I didn’t kill her, and when you get your heads out of your asses you’ll discover the truth. I’m innocent, and I’m done talking. I want my lawyer—now.”
“He’s not here yet. We still have time—”
“Get the hell out! I’ve asked for my lawyer and from here on out, we will wait for him to arrive.”
Kieran set the script down and looked at her brother with a smile. “Wow. Did you do it?”
“Nope. I am innocent,” he told her, and grimaced. “My character is innocent, at any rate. You see, he’s a rock star, and it really does look like he did it at first. The cops believe it was him—until they find a kid who was too terrified to come forward. She was actually killed by her stepfather. Because she totally rejected him!”
“You’re really good,” she told him, leaning an elbow on the desk. They were in the office at Finnegan’s. She was sitting in Declan’s chair. She’d returned from the soup kitchen with Mary Kathleen at about three, and Kevin had been there ready to run lines with her.
She’d popped into the back office to eat some fish and chips, and Kevin had joined her. They’d been running his lines for the filming that would take place on Monday and Tuesday.
“You’re pretty good at that emoting thing yourself,” Kevin told her.
“No, I’m not. You were laughing at me.”
“Just because you’re not a big black cop who used to be a linebacker,” Kevin said.
“Ah, but I love Arnie Westmore!” Kieran said. And she did. The actor who starred as the lead detective on the show Kevin would be filming was both strikingly handsome and definitely talented. He really had been a linebacker, too, with the Jets. She was thrilled that Kevin had scored a role on the show.
There was a tap on the door. Kieran jumped up, hopeful that it was Craig.
She had managed not to call him yet—mainly because she had kept busy all day.
It wasn’t Craig. It was Danny. He poked his head in and asked, “Am I interrupting the great flow of dramatic practice?”
“No, you’re not interrupting. Kevin knows his lines perfectly,” Kieran said, sitting back down. “I do believe he thinks that I’m horrible, and that I overact terribly, emoting here and there and everywhere.”
“Come on—she was trying to sound as tough as a linebacker,” Kevin said.
“Don’t kid yourself—Irish women are supposed to be tougher than linebackers, especially the Irish American kind,” Kieran assured him.
“Remember when we were kids?” Kevin asked Danny. “We weren’t supposed to hurt our only sister. And then one day Dad said, ‘Hey! If she pinches you again, deck her!’”
“Yeah, I remember,” Danny said. “But she was older than me—and she grew fast. And I was chicken. I never did deck her.”
“None of us did.”
“She was too scary,” Danny said.
Kieran made a face at them both. “And she’s really tired of this story!” Kieran told them firmly. “I was not a terror as a sister!”
“Well, it’s a good thing that you’re tough,” Kevin said. “Seeing you’re determined to get into or cause trouble at every turn.”
“I am not—”
“Sorry, sorry!” Kevin said. “Okay, trouble finds you. Your boyfriend is an FBI agent and you work with criminal psychologists. But, hey, yeah, trouble finds you.”
“This time, it actually did,” Danny told Kevin.
“But she’s going to let it go, right?” another voice asked.
None of them had noticed Declan when he arrived at the office door, arms crossed over his chest, expression stern as he looked at them all.
“I don’t know what you mean!” Kieran protested. “Craig might well be on the case.”
“Craig, yes, the guy who wears a Glock and knows how to use it,” Declan said. “Kieran, honestly, think about it—”
“Honestly! I am thinking. I’m not doing anything. I handed out food at a soup kitchen with your fiancée, and I’ve been a sounding board for my twin. I was happy to wait tables, but you were covered for the day. I am being an angel.”
“Fallen,” Danny muttered.
“I heard that!” she snapped at him.
The phone on the desk rang; it was Mary Kathleen out on the floor—Saturday evening business was picking up. It wasn’t crazy, but she could use one of them to help out.
Any one of them.
“I’m going,” Kieran said, rising. “It’s a hard life to bear the burdens of this family, but I am willing to give my all.”
She heard all three of her brothers laughing as she walked out. Shaking her head, Kieran went ahead behind the bar.
Mary Kathleen was hurrying about. She glanced quickly at Kieran. “Terrific, I’m heading out on the floor. You can manage here?”
“God help me, I hope so,” Kieran said. She was about to say that she’d grown up in the pub. It wouldn’t have sounded quite right. Neither of her parents had been drinkers. Tea had been mom’s go-to, and at best, her dad had a pint on a Sunday with his roast.
A pub could be so many things. In the old days, the men had usually enjoyed their whiskey and pints in the main room—women and children had often been banished to another area. But Finnegan’s had always been a place where food and camaraderie were the most important aspects of the business. There were hours during certain days when everyone there really did know everyone else.
However you looked at it, she knew how to handle a bar.
She knew a lot of their clientele that day, and it was nice to chat. They all asked her how she was doing, how did she like her “real work.” And, of course, she asked back about them and their families as she served up their fare: Larry Adair, whiskey neat and fish and chips. John Martin, a pint of whatever was on special and shepherd’s pie. Brian McMann, a soda with lots of lime and corned beef and cabbage. Jillian Boyle, white wine and Guinness stew.
She was moving about quickly and yet easily when the door to the pub opened just as the sun made a powerful streak down Broadway.
For a moment, it was almost like a religious experience. There, in the midst of the tremendous light, was a tall, dark figure with a sweeping cloak around it—as if a presence from above or beyond had arrived with a powerful force.
Kieran blinked, the figure stepped forward, and she saw that it was not a presence from above or beyond—and yet, it was still one containing a powerful force.
Sister Teresa was just outside the pub. She looked at Kieran for a long moment, grinned and turned away.
Astonished, Kieran stared after her. She frowned, wondering why the woman had come—and why she had turned away.
Danny was coming out of the office and heading toward the bar—probably looking for a friend with whom to chat a bit. Danny, realizing that he made one of the most garrulous and charming guides in New York City—if not simply the best, as he assured her he was striving to be—loved to find old-timers at the bar and talk a bit and then listen to all that they had to say.
She couldn’t let him get chummy and find a bar chair.
Swinging around the end of the bar—and nearly hopping over the little gate—she hurried to catch him. “I need you—some food coming out, drinks good for now, Brian probably ready for his coffee soon, doesn’t need cream!”
She didn’t give her baby brother a chance to protest.
She shoved him back, handing him the bar rag as she did so, and raced for the door. Bursting out onto the sidewalk, she was ready to run.
She didn’t need to. Sister Teresa—in her complete “penguin” outfit, as they had always called the nuns’ traditional habits—was waiting for her, studying the list of fresh smoothies on the menu of the fruit stand just a few feet away.
“What took you?” she asked Kieran.
Kieran’s brows shot up in surprise. “I’m sorry! I...you... I didn’t expect to see you. I’m so sorry. I guess you would have been uncomfortable coming in? The pub is quite nice—we have religious groups meet here now and then. Even a few rabbis!”
“Oh, honey, I have no problem going into a pub. Sometimes, when people see us, they get uncomfortable. I didn’t want to distress any of your customers, child, that’s all. Then again, it’s best to talk in private sometimes, too,” Sister Teresa told her. “And not be terribly conspicuous.”
“Yes, certainly,” Kieran said, curious—and anxious. She had felt that there was something going on at the soup kitchen. Sister Teresa’s presence here now seemed to solidify what she’d believed.
“And yes, sometimes it’s good to speak in private,” Kieran agreed. But, just how inconspicuous they could be—herself and a fully draped nun in front of the pub door—she wasn’t certain.
Sister Teresa waved a hand in the air as if reading her mind. “Never mind—I just don’t want people walking out on your lovely place of business. So, anyway, here’s the thing—are you going to be coming back to the soup kitchen?”
“Oh, yes. I was very impressed,” Kieran told her.
“We are impressive,” Sister Teresa said flatly. “But, may I suggest that you return sooner than next Saturday? You are employed Monday through Friday—Mary Kathleen filled me in on you, so I know—but we are open tomorrow, as well.”
“And I would come back because...?” Kieran asked.
“You have a way with a soup ladle?” Sister Teresa retorted sarcastically. “My dear Miss Finnegan! One of our young ladies—a very shy one at that!—asked if I knew you. If you would be back. I assured her that you would be. It is not at all nice to make a liar out of a nun. I am assuming she wishes to speak with you. And—since Mary Kathleen did fill me in on quite a bit—I believe this young woman might be looking to you for assistance, and help in what may be a criminal matter having to do with a beautiful baby girl.”
Kieran stared at her and blinked. “Sister Teresa, if you can tell me—”
“I can’t tell you anything. I am only suggesting that you come to the facility at about ten tomorrow. We open after the early masses—services and such for some of our partners of other persuasions—and we work until three or four. I’m also going to suggest that you be incredibly discreet—as I said, this young lady is very shy.”
“Of course,” Kieran said.
Discreet! Like standing with a nun on Broadway!
“Don’t dillydally,” Sister Teresa said, and for a moment, she felt as if she was dealing with Mary Poppins—had Mary Poppins decided to join a convent. “Get yourself in there early. It’s not like anyone has given me a timetable or anything.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what, young woman?”
“Of course, yes, I’ll be there, Sister Teresa!” Kieran promised.
“Excellent.”
The nun nodded sagely, turned and fluttered her way down Broadway.