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Justine paid the driver and a doorman in a green half-coat and matching pants helped her out of the cab.
“Visiting, ma’am?” he asked.
“I’m here to see Lawrence Finch,” she said, crossing the sidewalk. They were on the shaded side of the street but Justine could still feel the heat pressing in on her.
“Is he expecting you, ma’am?” The doorman’s smile was well practiced and didn’t waver.
“He is,” Justine lied. “He’s in apartment 17A, right?”
“That’s right, ma’am. You can go straight up.”
The doorman walked Justine into the lobby and nodded to the building concierge, who stood behind a black marble desk on the other side of the glittering, gilded space.
“Visitor for Mr. Finch,” the doorman announced, and something about his tone suggested an unspoken message. She guessed Finch must have a lot of female visitors.
“Far elevator,” the doorman said, gesturing at a trio of gold doors. “Seventeenth floor. Mr. Finch’s apartment will be on your left.”
The far elevator door opened as Justine approached.
“Thanks,” she told the doorman, who smiled and nodded.
There were no buttons in the elevator. A moment after she stepped inside the car it started to rise. There was a gentle chiming sound as it reached the seventeenth floor. When the door opened, Justine stepped out into a large lobby. There were only three doors visible, all black and double-width, discreetly numbered. Apartment 17A was to her left but when she rang the buzzer there was no answer.
She waited and tried again. Still no response.
She tried the door and was surprised to discover the big goldhandle gave at her touch. The latch clicked open. Her stomach churned with a sense of déjà vu as she recalled the discovery of the bodies at the house on Howard Avenue. Justine pushed the door wide and instantly knew something was wrong. The apartment was still and silent and there was the familiar and unmistakable sweet smell of decay.
Justine took out her phone and moved forward. She was in a wide, bright hallway with windows overlooking Union Square Park. She moved toward a set of double doors at the end of the hall but stopped when she passed an open archway to her right. It looked like a home office, but it wasn’t the desks, shelves full of books, or multi-screen trading station that caught her eye. It was the body on the floor.
Justine dialed 911.
She stepped further into the room and could see the body wasn’t in an advanced state of decomposition. She could clearly identify it as Lawrence Finch from his LinkedIn profile and news articles. He was lying prostrate, his face turned toward her. Both hands were stretched out ahead of him and three bullet wounds had stained his white T-shirt with blood. He was in boxer shorts, suggesting whoever had shot him had disturbed him in the night. Justine was no forensics expert, but she’d been around Sci long enough to know the basics. She nudged Finch’s left arm with her shoe and saw it move easily, which meant rigor mortis had subsided. Judging from the lack of bloating, puffiness, or serious decay, he’d been dead between forty-eight and seventy-two hours. She moved to get a better view of Finch’s hands and saw they were reaching intoa circular safe that had been concealed beneath a retractable floor tile.
She noticed a trail of blood from the desk to the safe.
Finch had dragged himself across the room after being shot. Why? What was so important? What would make a man expend such effort in his dying moments?
Justine knew she shouldn’t touch anything, but she had to know what would drive someone to such lengths. She crouched down and pulled his hands from the safe. They were cold and clammy. She recoiled in disgust. Experienced as she was in being around death, she still didn’t find it easy.
There were thousands of dollars in the safe and a couple of large Swiss watches, but neither Finch nor his killer seemed to have been interested in them. Justine found a digital Dictaphone in Finch’s right hand, and when she prized it from his stiff fingers saw it had been recording for ten hours. She stopped the device and rewound it to the start of the recording.
She heard heavy rapid breathing.
“My name is Lawrence Finch,” said a man’s voice. “I’ve been shot. The gunman, he … he was Asian … Chinese, I think. But … but I’m convinced it has something to do with the investigation into Ivor Yeadon.”
Justine listened intently.
“The man who got me into this. The man who …” Finch took frequent gasping breaths. “He said I would be exposed. He’d tell the world about my sex addiction. He said …” Further gasps. “Said I’d be ruined. His price was me hiring Private to investigate some guy called Ivor Yeadon. Never even met him.”More shallow, rapid breathing. “Man who blackmailed me into hiring Private thought he was anonymous, but I took a photo of him. It’s …” Justine could tell he hadn’t long left by this point, and prayed he’d managed to finish. Some indecipherable words followed. Then something she could understand. “Photo … in safe.”
There was a thud, and then the recording went silent.
Justine stopped the Dictaphone. She reached inside the safe and felt around but found nothing. She craned over Finch’s body and saw something: a curled photograph pressed against the side of the cylindrical interior.
She pulled it out and turned it over to see a face she recognized. Shot surreptitiously, the image was taken from a low angle and was slightly blurred, but there was no mistaking who it was.
Rafael Lucas.
Disbelief was quickly followed by a wave of nausea. She put out one hand to steady herself.
