Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,30
his address via the DMV.
They came to a stop outside 4D. The corridor either side of them was long and empty.
Jorgensen looked at Marquez, who nodded, and he knocked on the door a couple of times.
‘Dr Kruger? This is the NYPD. Open up, please sir.’
Nothing.
‘Dr Kruger?’
He looked at Marquez.
‘Dr Kruger?’ she called.
Nothing.
Jorgensen thought for a moment, then stepped back. He dipped his shoulder and suddenly rammed into the door. Given his size and muscle memory from days on the Rutgers defensive line, the lock was no match for the force that all two hundred and twenty pounds of him generated. The door splintered open, smashed back like so many quarterbacks who’d played against him back in the day.
He recovered his balance and together, the two detectives moved inside.
The apartment was lavish, the living area straight ahead, the kitchen to the left.
But it was also empty.
They separated, checking the place, then met up a few moments later.
‘No sign,’ Marquez said.
‘You think he left town?’ Jorgensen said.
She shook her head. Looking around, she saw a wallet on the mantelpiece and a set of car keys on the marble counter-top. She pointed at them.
‘His stuff is still here.’
‘Maybe he stepped out. Maybe he’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said, pulling her cell phone and calling Shepherd. As she did so, she opened the wallet on the counter and pulled out Kruger’s driver’s licence. The photo showed a handsome man, tanned and blond with a square jaw.
‘Sir?’
‘Yes?’
‘We’re up at Dr Kruger’s,’ she said, passing the licence to Jorgensen. She looked around the empty apartment. ‘He’s not here.’
‘OK.’
‘Want us to stay and wait? See if he comes back?’
‘No. Get over to Dr Tibbs’,’ Shepherd said abruptly.
‘Everything OK, sir? How are Archer and Josh getting on?’
‘I’ll update you later. I don’t have time right now. But find me these other doctors.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The call ended. Marquez slid the phone back into her pocket, then turned to Jorgensen, who was examining the driver’s licence.
‘We’re out of here. Dr Tibbs is next. Got his address?’
Jorgensen nodded, still looking around. ‘Be nice to have a place like this.’
‘With your salary? Maybe in twenty years.’
Jorgensen returned the licence to the wallet, then the two detectives turned and made their way out of the empty apartment. Marquez looked at the lock as she stepped outside. Jorgensen had annihilated it.
‘Make it twenty one years. They’re gonna make you pay for that.’
Jorgensen pulled the door back into place behind them, and jiggled it, trying to keep it closed.
Eventually it held and he slowly withdrew his hand. Then he looked at her and shrugged.
‘I tripped.’
Sitting in the back of a taxi, his heart pounding, Donnie looked back over his shoulder as the cab headed over the Brooklyn Bridge out of Manhattan. He couldn’t have felt more relieved to have planted the bomb and got away. Carrying it around, he’d just been waiting for a cop to stop him.
He watched as Lower Manhattan moved further and further away.
It would go off any second now.
FIFTEEN
As luck would have it, Tibbs lived just around the corner from Kruger. The journey only took Marquez and Jorgensen a couple of minutes.
Unlike Kruger’s building, this one had a reception and they walked over to the counter, Marquez showing the guy behind the desk her badge and telling him the reason they were here. The man said he hadn’t seen Tibbs this morning, which meant he was probably upstairs. As a precaution Marquez asked him for a key-card, which he agreed to provide on the condition that he join them. Marquez understood. Scams like this would be a dime a dozen across the city, thieves coming up with elaborate ways to get access to someone’s apartment. If he came with them and watched their every move, his ass would be covered.
He walked around the desk to join the two cops, passing Marquez the key-card. She took it, then turned to Jorgensen.
‘Save you another doorframe.’
Together, the trio headed for the lifts. Two of them were already open and they rode one up to 13. Once the lift arrived they stepped out and the guy from the reception led them down the corridor. Soon they came to a halt outside a varnished wooden door, 13 E.
‘Dr Tibbs?’ Marquez said, knocking. ‘NYPD. Open up please, sir.’
Nothing.
‘Dr Tibbs?’
Nothing.
She took the key-card and slid it into the lock, opening the door.
The moment she pushed it back, all three saw that Dr Tibbs was indeed inside the apartment.
And he wasn’t going anywhere.
He was laid out in the