Aquarium Read online

  “I… no. Of course not.”

  “Then this is just a suggestion,” Vic went on. “But how about you let the professionals decide what happened?”

  “Do you know who this woman is?” Webb asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Feldspar said. “Though I don’t know all our guests by sight, of course.”

  “How did she get in the tank?” Erin asked. She walked up to the glass and peered into the aquarium. It extended all the way from floor to ceiling with no door or access hatch on this side.

  “I don’t know,” Feldspar said. “I can put you in touch with Maintenance. They’ll know how to access the aquarium.”

  “May I go now?” Rosa asked quietly. She was standing close to the doorway, turned so she didn’t have to look at the ghostly floating body.

  “When, exactly, did you find her?” Webb asked.

  “A few minutes after eight,” she said.

  “Was anyone else in this room when you came in?”

  “No.”

  “And she was just like she is now?”

  “Yes.” Rosa shuddered. “Please, may I go?”

  “In a moment. You didn’t recognize her?”

  “No.”

  Webb’s face softened. “Okay. You can go. Thanks for your help.”

  The housekeeper gratefully hurried out of the room. Vic joined Erin at the fish tank.

  “It’s not a swimming pool,” he said.

  “She’s not dressed for a swim,” Erin replied.

  He nodded. “I don’t see any injuries, but the water would’ve washed the blood out of them. She might have lacerations. There’s so much water, it probably wouldn’t be too pink even if she bled out. We better get Levine’s take.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Weird way to kill yourself, if that’s what happened.”

  “You wouldn’t believe some of the creative ways people do it,” Vic said. “I heard about this one guy, once, he shot himself in the chest without a gun.”

  “What’d he use? A crossbow?”

  “Nope, a .22 bullet. Held it over his chest with a pair of pliers and whacked the bullet with a hammer.”

  “Did that work?”

  “Sort of. The bullet went off and put a hole in him, but not in anything important. After a while, he figured he didn’t really want to die so he walked himself into the emergency room.”

  “You shitting me?”

  He shrugged. “I got it from an EMT who got it from the doctor who operated on him. They coulda made it up, I guess. Point is, if you want out bad enough, you’ll find a way to do it. Why you think we take their shoelaces away when we stick ‘em in lockup?”

  “She’s wearing a nice dress,” Erin observed.

  “Meaning what?” Vic asked. “She wanted to die? Or she didn’t? You thinking she’s like those hotel girls last year?”

  “I don’t wear dresses often,” she said, suppressing a shudder at the memory. “And almost never that kind. Looks pretty fancy, doesn’t it?” She turned to Feldspar. “Was there some sort of party here last night? In this ballroom, or maybe the other one?”

  “Yes,” he said. “There was a benefit dinner. A lot of wealthy donors to a charity.”

  “Which charity?” Webb asked.

  Feldspar looked embarrassed. “I’m not actually sure. There are so many. I’ll have to check the event roster.”

  “While you’re doing that, if you could have someone from Maintenance come talk to us, that’d be helpful,” Webb said.

  “Of course, of course,” Feldspar said. He got out of the room a little faster than was polite.

  “You think he’s our guy?” Vic asked.

  “What? No!” Erin shot him a look. “What possible reason would he have?”

  “I dunno. He looked shifty.”

  “He’s nervous because there’s a dead girl in his fish tank,” she said. “You think he wants this sort of publicity for his hotel?”

  “Hey, murder tourism is totally a thing,” he said. “If the Bates Motel was a real place, they’d have reservations booked clean through next year. Am I wrong?”

  “Not as wrong as you ought to be,” Webb said. “But I don’t think drumming up enthusiasm among murder aficionados is quite the motive we’re looking for. We haven’t even classified this as a homicide.”

  “She’s dressed up,” Erin persisted. “Either she was at a formal get-together or else…”

  “…she was posed,” Vic finished. “Yeah, I thought of that the moment I saw her. Spooky. But if it’s posed, that means it’s a serial.”

  “That’s a stretch, Neshenko,” Webb said sharply. Both Vic and Erin knew their Lieutenant’s views on serial killers. He didn’t like the media attention that kind of case brought, and he didn’t like sensationalism.

  “If it’s posed, that makes it a homicide,” Erin said. “We all agree on that?”

  The other two nodded. Rolf, unconcerned, sniffed the floor and looked up at Erin. He thought they ought to be doing something that matched his definition of police work, which meant chasing and hopefully biting bad guys.

  The uniformed officer poked his head into the room. “Uh, sir? Got a guy out here, says the manager sent him up.”

  “Let him in,” Webb said.

  “This isn’t even the crime scene,” Vic muttered. “We got two inches of glass between us and the victim. If she was killed, it wasn’t in here.”

  A stocky man with a two-day growth of stubble on his chin shambled in. He was wearing a blue work shirt and a pair of jeans, both well-worn. A nametag on his chest read NIMKOWITZ.

  “Mr. Nimkowitz?” Webb guessed.

  “That’s me,” he said. “What am I doin’ here?”

  “You work maintenance for the hotel?”

  “That’s right. Somethin’ broken?” He scratched his chin.

  “We need to know how to access this aquarium,” Webb said.

  “What for?” Nimkowitz’s eyes drifted past Webb without much interest. Then he saw the floating woman and blinked. “Whoa.”

  “That’s what for,” Vic said. “Now, you gonna show us?”

  “Sure,” Nimokowitz said. “C’mon.”

  The maintenance man led them upstairs and along a hallway to a locked door, which he opened with a key from a ring in his pocket.

  “Who else has keys to this room?” Webb asked.

  “The custodial guys,” Nimkowitz said. “Management, I guess. The electrician. All the support people.”

  “How many people are we talking about?”

  Nimkowitz shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe eight or ten.” He gestured. “In there, on the right. There’s a trapdoor.”

  The room was dark. Erin found a light switch and flicked it on, bathing the area in harsh fluorescent light. It was obviously not a public part of the hotel. She saw lots of bare concrete and exposed pipes and valves. She also saw the trapdoor the maintenance guy had indicated.

  “Closed,” Vic said unnecessarily.

  “Well, yeah,” Nimkowitz said. “Those are tropical fish. The tank’s climate-controlled. See those dials there? That’s temperature, pH balance, saltiness, you name it. We got a guy comes in from the Bronx Zoo to check on ‘em once a week.”

  Webb knelt beside the trapdoor. He unlatched the door and pulled it open. The wet, fishy smell of a populated fish tank flowed into the room.

  “No controls or handle on the inside,” he said.

  “Of course not,” Nimkowitz said. “You don’t want the fish escaping, do you?”

  The detectives looked at him.

  “That was a joke,” he said.

  No one laughed.

  “What if someone falls in?” Webb asked.

  “They could just swim out again,” he said. “I mean, the door would still be open, right?”

  There was a silence.

  “Unless she got her hands on a key,” Erin said, “and got into this room, and opened the trapdoor, and dropped through, and pulled it shut behind her…”

 
“Unlikely,” Webb said. “This is looking like homicide. But we’ll need the ME to sign off on it. Levine should be here any minute, along with the body guys from the coroner’s office.”

  “You mean Hank and Ernie, don’t you,” Erin said heavily.

  Webb nodded.

  “I hate those guys,” she said.

  He nodded again.

  Hank and Ernie drove the “meat wagon,” the van which transported bodies to the Eightball’s morgue. Ernie was tall and thin, Hank short and fat. They looked like the sort of dimwitted henchman who appeared in Disney movies. They survived their unpleasant job on a steady diet of pitch-black humor.

  They arrived at about the same time as Sarah Levine, the Medical Examiner, meeting the detectives on the stairs outside the ballroom. Levine was less unpleasant than Hank and Ernie but no less odd. Levine was already wearing her gloves, scrubs, and lab coat when she got there. Erin had hardly ever seen her take them off.

  “Where’s the dead guy?” Levine asked.

  “Girl,” Vic said, pointing with his thumb. “She’s in the fish tank.”

  Hank peered into the ballroom with interest. “It’s an old Sicilian message,” he said.

  “She sleeps with the fishes,” Ernie agreed solemnly.

  “I hope they buy her breakfast afterward,” Hank added. “She’s not a mermaid. She’s got legs.”

  “Nice ones,” Ernie said. “That’s always the problem with mermaids, y’know. Doesn’t matter how nice she is up top. What’re you supposed to do if you want to get some tail?”

  “Get some tail,” Hank repeated with a snicker.

  “Stop ogling the victim,” Webb said. “Anything you can tell us from the way she’s presented, Doctor?”

  Levine went in close to the aquarium and peered through the glass. “No obvious external signs of trauma,” she said. “Pallor and blueness of lips and fingernails indicates possible asphyxiation.”

  “Hard to breathe under water,” Ernie said.

  “Was she dead before she went into the water?” Webb asked.

  “I’ll know when I do the autopsy,” Levine said. “Two fingernails on the right hand appear to be broken off. Possible defensive wounds.”

  “Or she tried to claw her way out of the tank,” Erin suggested. That was a nasty thought.

  “If that’s the case, the nails will be somewhere in the tank,” Webb said. “Assuming the fish haven’t eaten them.”

  “Do fish eat fingernails?” Erin asked.

  “Do I look like an ichthyologist, O’Reilly?” Webb retorted. “That’s a big tank, with a lot of water. We can’t very well go through it looking for a couple of fingernails.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Levine said. “It would be helpful to strain the water.”

  “We’re not draining the tank,” Webb said firmly. “The hotel won’t let us. It’d kill the fish, for one thing.”

  “I like fish,” Hank said. “Never eaten a regal blue tang before. How you think they taste?”

  “Tangy,” Ernie said.

  “Okay, people,” Webb said. “Let’s get her out of there. Carefully.”

  “You know,” Hank said thoughtfully, “sometimes when a body’s been in the water a while, you reach out and grab it and pieces just come right off in your hands. The skin sloughs right off the bones and you’re left with a skeleton.”

  “You lose any of her skin and I’ll take a matching piece of yours,” Vic said. “Skeletons. Jesus. What’s the matter with you?”

  “She’s only been here a few hours, tops,” Erin said. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

  “She’s right,” Ernie said. “See, you can tell because of the bloating. The decomp gases start swelling up after a couple days and they blow up like balloons. Speaking of balloons…”

  “Shut up,” Webb, Erin, and Vic all said in unison.

  While the coroner’s squad worked on retrieving the body, the Major Crimes team went down to talk to the manager again. Feldspar had acquired a couple of associates in the meantime. He was flanked by the hotel’s chief of security and a lawyer. The security guy was a brawny, slightly overweight man with a buzzcut and a limp. The lawyer was a lawyer, which to Erin meant a weasel in an expensive suit.

  “We don’t need him,” Webb said wearily, indicating the lawyer. “Your organization isn’t being accused of anything, Mr. Feldspar. We just need to see your security tapes.”

  “There’s an issue of privacy here, sir,” the lawyer said.

  “We don’t need to see inside your guests’ rooms,” Webb said. “Or their bathrooms, or whatever.”

  “You don’t have cameras inside the bathrooms, do you?” Vic asked, feigning surprise.

  “No, we don’t have bathroom cameras,” Feldspar said, glaring at Vic.

  “But the issue remains,” the lawyer said.

  “We’re trying to identify the victim of a crime,” Webb said. “We need to see footage from the hallway outside the maintenance door that accesses the aquarium. We also need to see any film you have from the charity dinner last night.”

  “That’s the problem, gentlemen,” the lawyer said, as if Erin wasn’t standing right there. “Charity donors value their anonymity. We can’t have them paraded before the press, or inveigled into a spurious police investigation.”

  “I’m just a dumb street cop,” Vic said. “So I don’t know what some of those words meant, but what I really don’t understand is why an anonymous donor would show up to a fancy-dress dinner and show his face to everybody, and expect to stay anonymous. Can you explain that to me?”

  “The hotel will be happy to comply with any legitimate court order you produce,” the lawyer said.

  “Mr. Feldspar,” Webb said, ignoring the lawyer. “There’s a dead young woman in your ballroom aquarium as we speak. She is either the victim of a tragic accident, a self-inflicted death, or a homicide. I can absolutely guarantee I can provide you with whatever documentation your lawyer requires, but it will take time. In that time, several things will happen, and one thing will not. What will happen is that a killer may have more time to cover his or her tracks; a young woman’s friends and family will wonder and worry where she is; police officers, both in uniform and plainclothes, will continue to hang around your hotel and make your guests nervous; and your lawyer will bill you for every minute of the time he spends ostensibly looking after your interests. What will not happen is any sort of resolution. This whole thing will not just magically go away. Now, your lawyer is absolutely right. You can legally stall us until you get a court order. But is that really in anybody’s best interest but his?”

  Erin watched the lawyer’s face as Webb talked. The man’s mouth slowly tightened and his lips compressed until she wondered if he was about to implode. She gave a sidelong look to Vic and saw he was doing the same thing she was, which was trying to hide a smile. Webb could be unpleasant sometimes, but it was a beautiful thing watching him take someone apart using nothing but words.

  “Barry, please take these detectives to the security station and give them whatever assistance they need,” Feldspar said to the security man.

  “Sure thing, boss,” Barry said. “After me, folks.”

  Chapter 3

  Erin’s least favorite part of being a detective was the paperwork, but watching security footage was a close second. She’d rather be hosing vomit out of the back of her squad car. That was messier, but at least it was over quickly. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice, so she was now playing hunt-the-pixel in a grainy video feed, trying to pick out a particular young woman from a crowd of well-dressed dinner guests. Next to her, Vic was doing pretty much the same thing with the upstairs hallway footage.

  She’d hoped the victim’s age and attractiveness would make her stand out, but she quickly saw that many of the philanthropists at the dinner were older guys with trophy wives, girlfriends, or mistresses. All the arm-candy looked virtually identical to her. She had to keep rubbing her eyes and blinking to refocus
.

  Rolf settled himself beside her chair, rested his chin on his paws, and went to sleep, showing once again that he was the smartest member of the Major Crimes squad. Webb drifted back and forth between Erin and Vic, looking over their shoulders and contributing nothing.

  Finally, after twenty minutes of monochrome “Where’s Waldo,” Erin saw what she was looking for. At the table in the lower left of the camera’s field of view, a woman who’d been seated with her back to the camera leaned over to say something to her date. He faced her to reply and Erin got a good look at both faces in profile.

  “I got her, sir,” she said, pausing the video.

  Webb was beside her in an instant. “Where?”

  “There.” She pointed.

  “Looks like her,” he agreed. “Hey, Barry?”

  “Yeah?” the security man asked, setting down the cup of coffee he’d been sipping.

  “Did this dinner have a seating chart?”

  “I think so. Let me check.” He sat down at his computer and scrolled through his files. “Okay, yeah, I got it here.”

  “Who’s at this table?” Webb asked, pointing to the screen.

  Barry squinted at the monitor. “Jeez, this resolution is crap.”

  “It’s your machine, not ours,” Webb said sourly.

  “You think I buy the equipment?” Barry returned just as sourly. “My Aunt Edna could be there and I wouldn’t recognize her. Useless piece of junk. Okay, that’s table five, I think. Going by the orientation that’s, um, Stone. Wendell J Stone. The third.”

  “Sounds like a rich asshole,” Vic said without looking away from his own monitor.

  “Neshenko,” Webb said warningly.

  “A rich, charitable asshole,” Vic corrected.

  “And who’s the girl sitting next to him?” Erin asked.

  “Hell if I know,” Barry said.

  “She crashed the party?”

  “No, but the invite was for Stone and a plus-one. Like a wedding invitation. He could’ve brought anyone.”

  “So she’s not Stone’s wife?” Webb asked.

  “She look like his wife?” Barry replied. “You ask me, that girl’s a pro.”