AFTER I PICKED UP EMILY AT HER HOTEL, we spent the morning interviewing members of Berger’s catering staff. A fruitless morning, as it turned out. All they knew about Berger were his odd eating habits. About Carl Apt, the waiters and cooks knew nothing at all.
We did manage to contact the Connecticut state troopers and have hidden surveillance put on Berger’s Connecticut estate. I didn’t think Apt was dumb enough to show up there, but you never knew.
We’d just sat down at DiNapoli’s on Madison Avenue for a breather when I saw the headline crawl beneath the Fox News Channel anchor on the bar’s muted flat-screen.
“Wealthy Murder Suspect in Police Custody Found Dead.”
I immediately lost my appetite. I didn’t need to hear or read the rest of the story to realize Lawrence Berger’s demise had hit the speed-of-light news cycle running. Emily and I had actually been in the middle of debating how to play the media with Berger’s suicide. We’d been planning to sit on things for as long as it took to lure Apt into a trap, but as I stared at the TV, it was looking more like we were the ones who’d just gotten played.
I got a call as we were about to order. I didn’t recognize the number. I picked it up, anyway.
“Detective Bennett, I need to speak with you,” said a French-accented voice.
I realized it was Berger’s chef, Jonathan Desaulniers, whom I’d spoken to this morning.
“What’s up, Jonathan?”
“There’s a girl, Paulina Dulcine,” he said in a panicked voice. “She is a friend of mine. She would sleep with Mr. Berger on occasion. I apologize for not recalling this during our interview. It happened on and off for about three years. You mentioned Mr. Berger perhaps killing people who had crossed him, and after I spoke with you, I thought of her.”
“She crossed him?” I said. “How? What happened?”
“Well, for a long time they had a tender relationship. He would purchase fine jewelry for her. But one day he asked her to do something to him that she thought was odd, and she started laughing. He ordered her to leave him, and they never were together again. I think Mr. Berger felt humiliated.
“The reason I’m getting in touch now is that I called Paulina today. While we were speaking, I heard a scream and then nothing. She hasn’t picked up since.”
“What’s her number and address?” I said, waving for Emily to follow as I jumped up.
Twenty minutes later, we screeched up in front of a thirty-story high-rise building in Battery Park City with another team of Major Case detectives and two more uniforms.
“Paulina Dulcine. Is she home?” I yelled at the concierge as we ran inside.
The slight, effeminate black man’s jaw dropped to the collar of his black Nehru jacket.
“Paulina, um, no. I thought I saw her leaving her apartment when I was delivering dry cleaning.”
“She didn’t leave through the lobby,” said the female concierge beside him.
“She must have gotten her car in the basement garage,” the thin black guy said, opening a door.
We ran down a flight of stairs into the dim cave of the concrete garage. The concierge pointed to the crowded corner on the left.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, pointing across the lot. “That blue car. The Smart car. That’s hers.”
We went over to the tiny car. Half a snapped key stuck in the lock. Emily knelt down and pulled a purse from underneath the driver’s door. She opened it and found a Gucci wallet.
“It’s hers, Mike,” Emily said, opening the wallet. “Paulina Dulcine’s. He got her. We’re too late.”
Chapter 82
“YOU KNOW, there was a case of tag-team killers we learned about at Quantico,” Emily said when we got back to the squad. “It was a textbook case of these guys, Oden and Lawson. One was a psycho rapist, the other a schizophrenic. Oden raped a girl and then handed her off to Lawson, who killed and mutilated her. Each had his own thing.”
“And your point is?” I said, still stinging from our near-miss of Carl.
“In this case, Apt is just killing off Berger’s enemies in the way that Berger wanted. He was like the caterers we spoke to, following specific orders. I see all Berger here. No Apt.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Even though the murders seem sadistic, they’re really not. The’re really set pieces, like elaborate assassinations.”
“That’s it, Mike. Apt seems like an assassin, cold, calculating, competent. I still can’t figure out what’s in it for him. Money? Maybe he’s just crazy. Who knows?”