The Wizards of Central Park West_Ultimate Urban Fantasy Read online

  However, it handled more cases in a single week than most city morgues attended to in years. Due to this volume, state-of the-art computers, X-rays, and medical equipment took up entire floors. There were multiple autopsy rooms and enough refrigerators to hold hundreds of deceased.

  Eddie and Luis parked in a special lot assigned for police cars, ambulances, and hearses. They walked into the large building and upstairs to the office of the assistant medical examiner.

  Doctor Beverly Warren waited for them, as Eddie had called en route. She wore green hospital scrubs and a white lab coat with an official city ID which hung around her neck. Her hair was chestnut brown and her skin pale. She possessed stunning green eyes that Eddie decided must be enhanced by colored contact lenses.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Beverly said as way of greeting, glanced up from a clipboard then made another hasty pencil mark.

  “What do you have, doctor?” Eddie asked.

  With her eyes on the clipboard, Beverly smiled. “Quick, to the point, direct. No wonder you’re a lieutenant.”

  Luis piped up. “Why’d we haveta come all the way down here? Couldn’t you just e-mail us?”

  Beverly gave Luis a smirk. “Whiny and annoyed. Check the attitude or you’ll be stuck a sergeant, Vasquez.”

  “I have to agree with Luis, Beverly,” Eddie insisted.

  They knew each other well and had worked on enough cases together for almost a decade. Beverly arrived fresh from Ohio to the New York City coroner’s office when they met. They had become comfortable with each other over the years and knew when they didn’t have to use titles.

  “What is so important you wanted a personal meeting?”

  With a tiny movement of her head, she indicated her office, and the two men entered the small, windowless enclosure. The fluorescent lights were on, which gave the room a green pallor.

  Beverly peeked down the hall, stepped in, and then carefully shut the door.

  “You afraid to be seen with us, doc?” Luis was surprised at the stealth.

  “No, I was planning to seduce the pair of you, and I hate to have my fun interrupted,” Beverly deadpanned.

  “Beverly, we have a case to solve,” Eddie urged.

  She picked up a file from her desk and handed it to Eddie. “This is my only copy. It does not leave this office.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Vasquez muttered.

  “This is about the homeless guy who was dismembered?” Eddie asked.

  “That’s right,” Beverly declared. “I have to clean up my report before I submit it officially. I understand it’s your case?”

  “So far,” Eddie affirmed.

  “Glad to see you back where you belong. I’ve actually missed you two the last three months,” she said.

  “We missed you as well,” Eddie assured, unable to contain a smile.

  “Read the prelim.”

  Eddie opened the folder and began leafing through the papers.

  Luis peeked over Eddie’s shoulder. “Looks like an autopsy.”

  “Now I know what I missed: your immediate grasp of the situation, Vasquez,” Beverly taunted.

  “How were the victim’s limbs removed?” Eddie pawed through the papers.

  “Torn,” Beverly stated.

  “Madre de Dios,” Vasquez whispered. “Like you thought, Eddie.”

  “What was remarkable was how it was done,” Beverly went on. “In the Middle Ages, a form of execution was called ‘Drawn and Quartered’ in which the limbs of the condemned were each tied to separate horses who were sent galloping off in different directions.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” Luis grimaced.

  “Too much free time,” Beverly responded without missing a beat. “That technique worked, but it left rope burns on the wrists and ankles.”

  “I take it there were none on the victim,” Eddie speculated.

  “And no horses at the scene?” Luis added.

  “There were hoof marks, but not from a horse,” Beverly commented. “Take a look at these.”

  She picked up a stack of photos from the desk and showed one of a disembodied arm. There were several small, egg-shaped bruises along the arm.

  “What left those marks?” Eddie wondered.

  “The closest thing I can guess is that his arm was grabbed by a giant hand. Look at the other side,” Beverly said, neatly flipping to a picture of the opposite side of the arm. “There is only one mark here, and it is more oblong.”

  “Like a thumb,” Eddie concluded.

  “Bravo, lieutenant,” Beverly said. “The evidence suggests that the limbs were torn off by a rather large hand.”

  “How big?” Luis challenged.

  “The hand would have to be…” Beverly pulled a small ruler from her pocket and held it up to the photo. “Bigger than a baseball mitt.”

  “Big hand,” Eddie blurted.

  “That’s not all. Due to the indention marks, I would say that the hand possessed very sharp fingernails, like claws.”

  “Claws?” Luis repeated.

  “Claws!” Beverly asserted.

  “How strong would this guy have to be?” Eddie considered.

  Beverly shifted her eyes to the ceiling thoughtfully. “Considering leverage and angles? Tall as well as powerful.”

  “How big?” Luis chimed in.

  “What was the height of the tunnel?” Beverly asked as she observed the section of the drop ceiling directly above her head.

  Eddie shrugged. “Riftstone Arch? In the center, about eleven feet—maybe twelve.”

  Beverly brought her eyes back to the detectives. “I would speculate that the murderer would be about as tall as that tunnel.”

  Eddie and Luis exchanged a glance. There was a long silence.

  “That’s not possible,” Luis protested.

  “It gets worse.” Beverly plucked the report out of Eddie’s hands and pointed to a specific page. “How does a guy with hands that large walk away without leaving big footprints?”

  “No footprints?” Luis said.

  Beverly shrugged. “Hoofprints were all CSU found.”

  “I thought you said there were no horses,” Eddie said.

  “It is a bridle path, but these prints weren’t from any horse. They were cloven hooves, like a pig.”

  “I got it!” Luis yelped. “We need to look for a really tall pig with big hands.”

  “The prints don’t come in or out of the tunnel. They appear there then they’re gone. Both of you left tracks; so did the victim. The only other marks were left by a snake, which was unusual as well.”

  “Why?” Eddie asked.

  “Because the snake moved through the gravel in a pattern that suggests a sidewinder, which is a desert snake. You don’t find them in New York.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Eddie griped. “A giant shows up, kills our vic then disappears?”

  Luis frowned. “Could the dirt be too hard to take impressions?”

  “I double-checked the scene photos and the reports,” Beverly said. “That arch is at the bottom of a dip in the road. There are puddles down there, poor drainage. The gravel and dirt are soft, wet, and take impressions very well. Here, see.”

  She pointed to a photo that showed several body parts and the gray dirt under them. She pointed with her finger to circles that were around indentations in the earth, each one a different color. “Here are your footprints, which I highlighted in yellow, and Vasquez’s; green. Then the victim’s prints; blue, the cloven hoof marks; red, and these are the snake’s tracks; orange.”

  Eddie shook his head. “How do you sneak in, rip someone apart, and get out without footprints?”

  “I have no idea.” Beverly picked up another page and held it out to Eddie. “Now, I took a look at his internal organs. How old do you think he was?”

  “Hard to say with his head a different place than the rest of him,” Luis pondered.

  “Anywhere from sixty to eighty, I’d say,” Eddie theorize
d.

  “I did a biopsy on his liver, and it was as vital as a twenty year old’s.”

  Luis said, “We are talking about the John Doe, right?”

  “Yes, and his muscle tone, along with his other organs, suggest a man who wasn’t more than thirty and lived like a monk.”

  “Anything show up on the tox report?” Eddie asked.

  “No drugs, no alcohol, though there were trace amounts of Artemisia Absinthium in the digestive track.”

  “Isn’t that a type of liquor?” Luis offered.

  “Yeah, that stuff—Absinthe,” Eddie suggested.

  “The liquor is made from the plant, but he ingested just the herb, also known as wormwood. I’m damned if I know why.” Beverly again leafed through the folder to extract a single sheet of paper. “Now for the coup de grâce.”

  “What is that?” Luis questioned.

  “A metallurgist report.” Beverly handed the page to Eddie.

  “You checkin’ the weather?” Luis frowned.

  “Not a meteorologist, Luis, a metallurgist—a guy who studies metals.” Eddie read the report and shrugged. “So what?”

  “Did you read it?” Beverly asked.

  “Doctor Warren, this report is very technical. Can you put it in layman’s terms?”

  Beverly inhaled sharply and twisted up her face. “Actually, I don’t know if I can.”

  “Try?” Eddie grunted.

  “Unless it makes things even stranger,” Luis added.

  Beverly’s face relaxed. “Okay, I think if I tell you how I got there—” she paused then started in. “Several of the man’s teeth were gold.”

  “Not too unusual,” Eddie said.

  “No, except for one thing. I pulled the teeth, and they were not gold crowns or even dental implants. The gold was growing out of his jaw. It was unique, a really rich color I’d never seen before. So I extracted the four in his mouth. All in all, his teeth were in great shape.”

  Luis shook his head. “So he had gold in his mouth. What’s the big deal?”

  “According to Hal—he’s the metallurgist—it’s a very big deal.” Beverly picked up speed with excitement. “He told me that this was the purest gold he’d ever seen. Nowadays, gold has to be pulled out of the ground with arsenic. It takes a lot of soil to get a little gold, and it’s loaded with impurities,” Beverly said, her gaze shifting from man to man. “Not this guy’s teeth!”

  “I don’t get it,” Luis conceded.

  “According to Hal, the gold in that man’s mouth could not have been mined by modern methods. In fact, he has no explanation how this quality of gold ended up in someone’s mouth.”

  “I think I follow,” Eddie said. “Gold that pure would be very valuable. How did a homeless guy get it?”

  “There’s one other theory.” Beverly suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I went online, and there are these cults where when the reverend is preaching, gold falls from the air.”

  “What?” Luis said, even more annoyed.

  “It’s right here.” She held up a color photo of a man with gold teeth. “They also have records of faith healings in which damaged teeth were—ta daa!—transformed to gold!”

  “What you’re suggesting,” Eddie hypothesized, “is that this guy’s teeth turned into gold, like Midas.”

  “King Midas?” Luis frowned. “But that’s just a fairy tale.”

  “Technically, it’s a myth,” Beverly clarified. “But so far, it’s the only explanation that fits.”

  Ten

  Between the traffic and a quick stop for lunch, it was afternoon by the time Eddie and Luis got back to the "22." Eddie’s head still reeled from unanswered questions and the dreadful awareness that he didn’t have any idea how to even begin to work the case.

  Usually, he and Luis used dogged persistence and those sudden flashes of insight that a detective depended on. They would quickly figure out a motive, pursue a suspect, or at the very least get a general direction for the investigation.

  He pulled Luis into the conference room near their desks and poured them both coffee.

  “Any donuts?” Luis looked over at the coffee table hopefully.

  “You need donuts?” Eddie said. “We just had lunch.”

  “I haveta keep my strength up.” Luis took a Styrofoam cup from Eddie.

  “I’m telling you, Luis, this case—this case…” Eddie shook his head in dismay.

  “Nothing is fitting together,” Luis sympathized as he took a large swallow. “So what if we don’t solve it?”

  “What?” Eddie said, surprised.

  “A homeless guy ends up dead. It’s not like he’s got family who want to know what happened.”

  “Damn it!” Eddie slapped the conference table with an open hand. “I hate to settle. I hate saying the victim wasn’t important.”

  “But, Eddie, I’m just being reasonable,” Luis pleaded, his hands open in an imploring gesture.

  “Come on, Luis, we asked for this case.”

  “You heard Doc Warren. What are we gonna do, go looking for a twelve-foot guy with claws?”

  “He would be easy to spot,” Eddie said, tightlipped.

  “Uniforms have questioned people in the buildings that face the park. No one heard or saw anything.”

  “Then we start over. Did anyone talk to the doorman at the restaurant?”

  “Tavern on the Green?” Luis reasoned with a nod. “I could try to talk with him after four. That’s when the shifts change.”

  Eddie caught his reflection in the one-way glass at the far end of the room and remembered the assignation he’d made with the man in the mirror.

  Eddie spoke as if in a trance. “I have an appointment with someone who told me he could explain it.”

  “Really?” Luis brightened as he rose. “That would help.”

  Eddie shook himself. The bizarre feeling left, and he turned to his partner. “Any other ideas?”

  “Hey, how about the homeless in the park?” Luis suggested. “Someone has to know the vic, right?”

  “Good thinking,” Eddie responded.

  “And bring that cane,” Luis said as they threw out their cups and returned to their desks.

  Eddie was taken aback. “The cane, why?”

  “If they’d seen him, they might recognize it and know how he came by it.”

  Eddie nodded. “I’ll go upstairs and sign it out.”

  Luis caught his arm and pointed. “Isn’t that it next to your desk?”

  Eddie turned to see the fanciful stick right beside his chair.

  “Uh…right.” Eddie gingerly grabbed the cane and followed his large partner out the door.

  They walked north through the park, the day sunnier than the previous. The air carried the crisp scent of late spring and growing things.

  The last few months, working out of the Central Park precinct, Eddie had been given a real chance to explore the urban oasis. He could see the seasons change when spring came alive, and he’d walked through the guilefully devised wilderness of the Ramble, the expansive open space of the Great Lawn, and the rustic environment of the North Woods. It made him feel more at one with nature. He no longer thought of the park as merely an obstacle in the middle of the island that separated the East Side from the West.

  People strolled the concrete walkways, some in business suits and power ties, many in shorts and T-shirts. Eddie and Luis headed north toward the Conservatory Gardens. The gardens were a fenced-in section above 103rd Street, a formally designed quadrangle of plants, fountains, and statuary.

  It was used for outdoor weddings of every type and denomination. It was not uncommon on a Saturday in the spring to see a white-clad bride pass a Buddhist couple in traditional garb with the bride in fiery-red silk.

  Unknown to most of the visitors, outside the fence was a site where the homeless camped out when good weather came around. They were hidden by the underbrush and trees, and the iron fence gave them a modicum of privacy and a place to hang makeshift tents
.

  Eddie reflected on the difficult life the ragged men and women endured. Often mentally ill or suffering from drug or alcohol dependence, they lived a nomadic existence. They carried their meager possessions in carts or bags and would spend the winter months in shelters. Once spring and summer arrived, they would return to the streets and their self-destructive habits.

  You could find them throughout the park, panhandling or just wandering around having animated conversations with invisible adversaries—or perhaps God. Some only muttered to themselves. They all looked unkempt, smelled bad, and were as much a part of the city landscape as the Empire State Building.

  Luis pointed at several very large cardboard boxes set up in a remote area not far from a guilefully hidden dumpster.

  “Over there,” Luis pointed, and they started in the direction of the boxes. Eddie carried the cane and used it as he walked. The handle felt warm and reassuring in his hand.

  “Man, how can they choose to live like this?” Luis considered.

  “With some it’s not a choice,” Eddie responded as they drew nearer.

  “That’s crap,” Luis said. “It’s always a choice. You choose to become an alcoholic or do drugs. That stuff don’t force itself down your throat.”

  “You don’t think alcoholism is a disease?” Eddie queried.

  “Not on your life. My father was a drunk, and so was my uncle. Me, I only touch the stuff at parties, and I stop at two. I could drink more—I like it—but I just think of my old man and my kids. I know when to quit.”

  “You didn’t know when to quit having kids.” Eddie smirked.

  Luis grinned as well. “I sure as hell ain’t giving that up. Besides, I love my kids—”

  “And your wife, repeatedly,” Eddie joked.

  Both men chuckled as they arrived at the first cardboard box. It was emblazoned on the side with the word FRIGIDAIRE and must have been used to ship the largest refrigerator ever manufactured. It was over seven feet tall, ten feet wide, and just as deep.

  “Hello, anyone home?” Eddie yelled, finding a piece of black cloth stapled to a makeshift opening that shielded the resident from the outside world.

  “Get thee ‘way,” a reedy voice muttered back.