The boy in the cooler was looking rather the worse for wear. He had been shot at close range in the back of the head, and at some point after his death, his face had been lightly splashed with acid. In the places where it remained whole, his skin had turned a sickly green, but on his upper lip, which was miraculously intact, a cleft palate scar was faintly visible.
Looking at the yellow burns on the boy’s cheeks and forehead, Powell reached into the body pouch and withdrew the right arm. He did this gently, aware that the loose skin of the hands could slip off altogether, like a latex glove. Taking it by the wrist, he examined the boy’s hand. More acid had been applied to the tip of each digit, eating the fingerprints away.
He turned to regard the two other bodies lying nearby. Each had been subjected to similar treatment, their faces and fingertips also erased. One had been shot at the base of the skull, while the other bore a starfish wound in its decomposing chest, the mark of a shotgun blast.
Powell let the boy’s hand drop, then left the cooler, emerging into the relative warmth of the decomp room. Glancing at Wolfe, he saw that she looked a little green herself. The morgue attendant seemed to notice this as well. “If you’re going to be sick, do it in one of the sinks,” the attendant said, closing the cooler door. “Don’t forget to take off your mask first.”
“I’ll be fine,” Wolfe said. They were standing in a small room off the main morgue. The walls and floor had been painted with gray acrylic that could be easily mopped and bleached. In the ceiling, next to the fluorescent lights, an exhaust fan was loudly at work, but the most distinctive part of the room, far more than its visible furnishings, remained its indescribable smell.
At the center of the room stood a single autopsy table, a rolling metal pan on swivel wheels. Its narrow end had been mounted to one of the sinks lining the far wall. On its steel surface, which was sloped to allow fluid to drain, a fourth body was in the process of being undressed by the deputy medical examiner whom Powell had encountered before. Next to him stood the detective he had last seen at the scan of the dead girl, his face as pink as always.
Powell and Wolfe approached the body. Beside the table stood a gurney draped in a white sheet. On it, the dead man’s clothes were being laid one article at a time, along with the contents of his pockets.
As they drew close, the deputy medical examiner looked up. Behind his plastic safety glasses, his eyes crinkled. “Glad to see you again. You always manage to show up for the most interesting cases—”
Powell gave a nod of greeting, then turned to the body. “What do we know so far?”
The detective cleared his throat. There was a dab of mentholated ointment under his nose. “We found them at an industrial site in Gowanus, a few blocks from the canal. My guess is that someone planned to dump them in the water, then got cold feet. Each body was stuffed in a steel drum. The lids were sealed, but not very tightly. The smell drew the workers to the scene.”
Wolfe looked down at the dead man. His face and fingerprints had also been erased. “Do we know who he is?”
“No identification or wallet on the body, so it’s hard to say, but we’re pretty sure that it’s a gangster named Arshak Gasparyan. Armenian, late twenties, arrests for assault and firearms possession. Vanished last week. We’re still waiting to identify two of the others through dental records. The youngest one was the easiest. His cleft palate scar narrowed it down pretty quick—”
Powell studied the remains of the dead man’s face. The skin of his head and forearms had turned green, but the parts that had been covered with clothing were in better shape. “Do we know what kind of acid was used?”
The medical examiner spoke up. “Based on the yellowing of tissue, it looks like nitric acid. Not something that most people have lying around the house. It’s used primarily in chemical fertilizers. And to stain wooden furniture.”
Powell made a note of this as he went to examine the dead man’s belongings, which had been laid on a clean sheet of paper. No wallet or keys. A few coins, a wad of tissue, and a paper scrap, which he picked up. On the slip, a string of numbers had been written in ballpoint pen, along with what looked like a manufacturer’s code. “Any idea what this is?”
“We called it in already,” the detective said. “Judging from the format, it’s the serial number for a memory card, probably used for a digital camera. Not sure what it means, though.”
Powell set the scrap of paper down. “Have you recovered any slugs from the bodies?”
“Two so far,” the medical examiner said. “The younger one in the cooler had a nine-millimeter slug, too misshapen to eyeball. Our friend here has what looks like a.45 ACP with a clockwise twist. Why?”
“There’s a comparison I want you to run. A revolver we found in Southampton. It’s a Smith and Wesson Model 625, which fits your bullet.”
“I’ll have our ballistics unit follow up,” the detective said. “Anything else you need?”
“No. We’re good for now.” Powell signaled to Wolfe, who seemed more than ready to move on. “Let’s go.”
They left the decomp room. A few minutes later, they were back in the car, the smell of the morgue still lingering. Powell slid into the passenger’s seat as Wolfe got behind the wheel. “So what do you think?”
Wolfe took a bottle of perfume from her purse and misted the air before responding. “Honestly? I’m not convinced that Sharkovsky was a part of this. The modus operandi doesn’t match up. Instead of losing their head and hands, these guys were splashed with acid. It doesn’t fit.”
“True,” Powell said. “But it doesn’t mean that Sharkovsky wasn’t involved. Maybe he got someone else to take care of the bodies. Because what we’re looking at here is a mob deal gone bad.”
Wolfe started the car and pulled away from the curb. “What makes you say that?”
“The page in the dead guy’s pocket. It’s standard operating procedure for an overseas exchange. Say you have a shipment of weapons coming in. You give your supplier a camera of your choice. He mails it overseas to take pictures of the merchandise, then returns it. Before you look at the pictures, you check the serial number to verify that the memory card is the same.”
They halted at a red light. “So what kind of merchandise are we talking about?”
“Guns,” Powell said. “According to my guy in the wire room, we’ve been hearing rumors of a weapons deal. So we need to make sure that any warrant for the club includes camera equipment.”
Wolfe turned onto Second Avenue. “I don’t know about you, but I doubt we’ll be seeing a warrant anytime soon.”
“So do I,” Powell said. For now, at least, they had hit a dead end. The hatchback at the vineyard had been rented with a stolen credit card. Since the heist, neither Zhenya nor Ilya had been seen, while Sharkovsky had gone to work as usual, sporting a bandage over one eye. In the absence of more conclusive evidence, however, the investigation had been left with no choice but to focus on side issues. One was the oligarch. The other was the art fund.
As Wolfe continued down the avenue, her thoughts seemed to be running along similar lines. “You know what I was thinking? If I were Maddy Blume, and I knew who stole the painting, I’d cut a deal with the thief. If you could buy the painting at a fifth of its legitimate value—”
“—it would be a real bargain.” Powell rolled down his window, hoping to disperse the remaining stench. “And if I were the thief, I’d want a buyer lined up. Otherwise, the painting would be almost impossible to move.”
“So maybe they made a deal with the fund, and the girl was there to see it through. Or maybe she cut a deal of her own. Her background check says she’s a true prodigy, but ran a gallery that went belly up last year, so she’s loaded down with debt.” Wolfe spoke with the disapproval of one convinced that debt was the worst of all possible evils. “So she might have been willing to work with Sharkovsky.”
“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Powell said. “But even if the fund got its hands on the study, the underlying problem remains. How do you sell the most famous stolen painting in the world? A heist like this only makes sense if the recipient intended to keep it for himself. Not a dealer, but a collector. Sharkovsky doesn’t qualify, but a man like Vasylenko, perhaps—”
“Maybe. But there’s one other person involved who has the motive to fake a heist.”
“I know,” Powell said. There were reasons to be suspicious of Archvadze himself. A theft was a reasonably effective way to monetize a work of art. Even if Archvadze paid a generous fee to Sharkovsky, once he claimed the insurance, he would get the painting at a huge discount. As remote as the possibility seemed, it would be necessary to learn more about how the painting had been insured. “You still have the phone number for Archvadze’s lawyer?”
“Yeah, hold on.” At the next light, Wolfe checked her pockets and came up with the business card. “You want to arrange a meeting?”
“It can’t hurt to try.” Taking out his phone, Powell dialed the number, dimly recognizing the name of the lawyer, who had built a substantial practice for himself around a clientele of wealthy expatriates.
After being placed briefly on hold, he got through to a secretary, who transferred him to the lawyer’s private line. The phone rang twice before the lawyer brusquely answered. “Yes?”
“Hi there,” Powell said, giving his name and reaching for a notepad. “I’m a liaison officer with the Serious Organised Crime Agency in London. I’m calling about one of your clients, Anzor Archvadze—”
The lawyer broke in. “Anzor Archvadze is no longer a client of mine. We terminated our professional relationship this morning.”
Powell, surprised, glanced over at Wolfe. “Do you know where I can reach him?”
“I’m afraid not.” The lawyer’s voice grew distant. “When we last spoke, he indicated that he was going to be unreachable for the foreseeable future. As far as I know, he’s on his way back to Georgia.”
The lawyer hung up. Powell closed his cell phone. He found that the smell of death was still in the car, even though the windows had been rolled down. It seemed to be in his clothes.
“I think,” Powell said, looking out at the street, “that we have a bit of a problem.”