Page 111 of King’s Ransom

They looked around quizzically for the courtesy van, expecting it to do the morning yoga run.

But it wasn’t there.

In fact, it never returned.

I thought about this.

I wondered if that was when Aristo King had been taken.

If the kidnapper(s) had impersonated the superintendent, Lenny Grossman, maybe they’d also impersonated the courtesy van’s female driver.

Which would make three bad guys: the super, the female driver and Sauna Guy.

Of course, later on December 21st—around 6:50 a.m., shortly after Ms Kimura had raised the alarm—the whole garage became a circus as it filled with NYPD and FBI cars, cops and agents. (That, I noted, would have been 5:50 a.m. in Houston; they would call me nineteen minutes later, at 6:09 a.m.)

Later again that day, around 3 p.m. New York time, nearly all those same cars sped out—I even saw Hooper, Longmuir and the Tech Detect all zooming out in their cars, heading for the ruse at St Patrick’s Cathedral.

I rubbed my eyes.

Checked my watch. It was 2 p.m.

I’d been staring at my screen for six hours straight and was starting to lose my concentra—

A hand fell on my shoulder and I jumped, startled.

‘Whoa, little man. Take it easy, cowboy.’ It was Heidi. She offered me a sandwich. ‘I got some updates for you, so I figured I’d come by and tell you in person.’

‘Great,’ I said.

Suddenly, my phone rang.

It was Georgy. We spoke briefly before I said, ‘Excellent,’ and hung up.

‘What’s going on?’ Heidi asked.

‘Georgy’s finally got us access to see the Grandmaster’s body,’ I said. ‘Let’s go take a look before Audrey is woken up.’

Offices of the Westchester County Medical Examiner

28 December, 1445 hours

Forty-five minutes later, I entered the offices of the Westchester County Medical Examiner with Heidi, Georgy and Georgy’s newest client, Mrs Olga Kazan, the widow of Sergei Kazan, a.k.a. the Grandmaster.

(After my visit to Roman Oberov’s apartment, Oberov had ordered Olga Kazan to make Georgy her lawyer and she had promptly done so.)

Since Sleepy Hollow is in Westchester County, all the bodies of people killed in the district by ‘unlawful acts, violence or unexplained circumstances’ are sent to the morgue at the county’s medical examiner’s facility.

The morgue was only a short drive from Phelps Hospital.

Indeed, the cemetery where Sergei Kazan had been shot by Merritt Garrett actually lay in between the morgue and the hospital.

Now, even if someone is a criminal, their wife gets to see their body and, if all forensic examinations have been completed, to take it away for burial.

Getting to see the Grandmaster’s body had been more complicated than usual, since he’d been implicated in the deaths of several cops and FBI agents at the tower and been killed in a shootout with a private detective.

But the coroner had had the corpse for a week, and as Georgy had argued—when he spoke about legal matters, the skinny dude was actually quite polished and confident—that was enough. Honestly, Georgy reasoned, how much more could his body tell them now?

(Roman Oberov had also got the families of the two Russian goons killed with the Grandmaster to make Georgy their attorney, so we could arrange for the release of their corpses at the same time.)