The Frenzy Way Read Online Free PDF Page B

moved to intercept him, then stepped back with recognition on his features.
    “Captain Mace!” a voice called behind him.
    “Captain!” called a second voice. “Can you tell us what happened?”
    Wishing he hadn’t worked so many high-profile cases, Mace walked faster, ignoring the reporters. The glass door closed behind him, muffling the reporters’ voices, and he rapped on one of the inside doors.
    The PO stationed at the elevator came over and admitted him.
    “Any idea who tipped them off?”
    The PO, a medium-sized man in his twenties, said, “No, but it was a real zoo when the EMTs removed those body parts.”
    Mace digested the information. The coroner must have orderedspecific body parts to be kept separate from others to avoid confusion and error later on. If Mace had remained on-site, he would have made sure the situation had been handled differently; at least the bags would have been arranged in the shape of a human form within the body bag.
Mistake number one.
    The elevator door opened before he thumbed its button, and a short, elderly woman in a floral print dress and a straw hat stepped out. She looked at Mace and the PO, then at the crowd outside, and shook her head. As the PO opened a door for her, Mace boarded the elevator and pushed the third-floor button.
    When the elevator door opened again, the sound of a loud drill came from Glenzer’s condo. Mace nodded to the new recorder stationed outside the door and went inside. Deepak Maheebo stood gazing out one of the living room windows. Mace pulled a fresh pair of latex gloves from his coat pocket, stepped around the pile of books, and entered the bedroom. The body parts had been removed from the bed and the floor, which had been covered with a plastic tarp, but the sweet smell of blood still permeated the air.
    Hector, Patty, and Willy stood before the bed, watching a burly man in blue jeans and sneakers burrow into the closet safe with a metal drill the size of a baseball bat. The man, who looked a few years older than Mace and wore a Yankees cap over his gray hair, needed two hands to control the massive drill, which had been plugged into the left wall beneath the bloody graffiti.
    The deep, dark closet appeared larger than Mace had guessed. The sound of the drill bit chewing into the safe’s iron door split the air. Mace couldn’t hear his latex gloves snap as he pulled them on. Joining his detectives and Hector, he saw that the safe man wore protective goggles. Fine metallic particles blew away from the dull black safe like tiny flying insects. Mace assumed the missing handle and combination dial had been tagged and bagged as evidence. Scores of scratches crisscrossed the door like angry welts on smooth skin.
    A sudden hollow grinding sound filled the room as the drill penetrated the safe, and the safe man pitched forward. He switched off the drill, which continued to whir for a moment, then pulled it free of the safe, laid it on the floor, and removed his goggles. He reached into the compact tool kit at his side and selected a small precision instrument with which he proceeded to probe the hole he had drilled.
    “You take all of your measurements?” Mace said to his detectives.
    Patty nodded. Willy held up his notebook and flipped the pages, indicating sketch after sketch detailing the locations of various body parts, some of which he had identified with question marks.
    Hector turned to Mace. “We got a couple of black hairs off the bed that don’t match the gray ones in the bathroom.”
    Patty gestured at the safe. “See those scratches on the door?”
    Mace inspected the safe. Several sets of five scratches ran from the top of the door to its bottom.
    “They’re spaced out like they were made by fingers, but they’re too thin to be from human fingernails. They look more like claw marks.”
    “They could have been made by some kind of tool,” Mace said.
    The safe man looked up from his task. “Not any kind of tool used for cracking