Terri cleared the second bathroom.
I did a quick sweep under the bed and in the closet. Nothing. The windows were all closed and locked from the inside.
I tried to think where Ott might have gone.
I got on the radio. “The room’s empty. It doesn’t look like he got on the fire escape. There are at least two levels underground. Mostly for maintenance and storage. Has anyone seen anything there?”
The uniformed sergeant came on and said they had covered the entire outside and he had someone searching the roof.
Detective Raina Rayesh came on the radio and said, “The other clerk tells me Ott checked in six weeks and three days ago. She gave me a set of passkeys so we don’t have to kick in any doors.”
Terri Hernandez mumbled, “Too late.”
Terri and I met the cops from the roof and we searched each floor, stairwell, and elevator carefully. We found nothing.
More cops arrived, including my lieutenant, but we still had no idea where Daniel Ott had disappeared to. Harry Grissom put his arm around my shoulders, knowing how I must feel.
He said, “This is a win. We know who this guy is now. What he looks like. For once we can use the media to our advantage.”
Chapter 92
I sat with Harry Grissom in the hotel lobby as for the second time in days we crafted a news release revealing the identifying details of a serial killer.
By the time we’d announced Jeffrey Cedar’s crimes, he was already dead.
This was a far more sensitive situation. We would be getting a murderous fugitive’s name and picture out into the public in the midst of an active hunt for him. Plus, there was an incoming report of a fresh homicide, done at an apartment in Queens, that fit Ott’s profile. The public needed to understand that anyone who got in his way could be in danger. Or, for different reasons, anyone who had helped him.
Raina Rayesh had questioned the male clerk when he returned to the hotel. Under a little pressure, he confessed that he’d helped Ott escape. He said he did it for money and admitted that he’d come back to look for the balance of his payout.
When Raina told him his actions amounted to aiding and abetting a fugitive, which made him an accessory to Ott’s crimes, the clerk tried to walk it all back, saying he thought Ott was only involved in some kind of antifa bullshit, not the murders that had been all over the news.
As she cuffed him, Raina had said, “Tell it to your lawyer.”
We never did need to call on the retired Detective Lynch from SFPD, but Harry and I did have to prepare for a talk with the bigwigs at One Police Plaza. But first, while Harry finished the details on the press release, I wanted to take another look around the hotel.
Raina gave me the ring of passkeys, and I went down a level to a dark storage area. The same key opened all the locked maintenance doors. Behind one of the doors was the maintenance stairwell. It went down another level.
I couldn’t be sure if someone had searched here, so I took the stairs down. It was about as I’d expected: dark and musty, with an unused workbench covered with tools sitting in the corner. Seemed like the kind of place a killer on the run might hide out. Especially one who used tools only as weapons.
I thought about calling Terri Hernandez to come down and give me a hand, but I realized I could see the entire level. Especially now that it was becoming clear that Ott had somehow given us the slip, I didn’t need any help. I took a few minutes to look in the corners and under a couple of cabinets, but there was nowhere to hide here, and no street exit. The only way in or out of this room was via the maintenance stairwell or the elevator.
As I turned back to the stairwell, I noticed a familiar structure. One of those big, wall-mounted circuit boxes. Maybe they were called junction boxes.
Where had I seen one of these before?
I hesitated, looking at the box.
Chapter 93
Ott couldn’t see his watch, but by counting his breaths, he knew he’d spent at least thirty minutes crammed inside a junction box on the bottom floor of his extended-stay hotel. This one hadn’t been nearly as hard to get into as the one at the library. But between the conduit and wires streaming through the box, it was just as uncomfortable.
The question was, how long would the cops search? His escape plan hinged on the cops thinking he had left the area. Enough time had probably passed to make them believe it.
Noises buzzed through the junction box. He heard a couple of air conditioners cycling. He also heard the distant sound of a toilet flushing. And then, for the past few minutes, silence.
He was preparing to open the door and slide out of the box when he heard a noise so close that it could only have been made by someone looking for him. But it couldn’t be. The quick glimpse he’d gotten of the room had told him it was rarely used.
He thought about what he had on him. Tools, his wallet, his burner phone, and his personal phone. Not that he could use the personal phone again. Ever. Or his credit cards. He hadn’t even thought about never seeing his daughters or wife again. But those were the facts laid out in front of him.
Once he escaped from this hotel, he’d have to leave his whole life as Daniel Ott behind.
Ott shifted his weight. He stayed in place for a moment, listening. Then he raised his left arm enough to move the sliding lock and open the door to the junction box.
He let it swing wide. In the glow from the single light on in the corner, the room appeared to be empty. He sat there for a moment, listening. Then he stretched his legs out and let them drop over the side of the box, giving himself a moment to let the blood return to his limbs. Finally, Ott slid out of the box and landed quietly on the rough concrete floor.
He had to smile. The cops may have figured out who he was and where he was staying, but they had not caught him. He was still smarter than them.
Ott turned to close the door to the junction box. He didn’t want anyone getting any ideas about how he had escaped. He might use a similar hiding place again.
As he turned from the box, Ott was startled to see a tall man casually leaning against the door to the stairwell. It took a moment, but he recognized him as Detective Michael Bennett.
“Nice try, Ott,” Bennett said, “but you already used the same trick at the library. I’m slow, but I still pick up on patterns given enough chances.”
Ott’s eyes darted around the room, and he reached for a tool from his pouch.
Bennett didn’t change his tone. “Don’t even think about it.” He moved his right hand and showed Ott he was holding a pistol. “And I already sounded the alarm. You’re not getting away from NYPD this time.”
Ott raised his hands slowly.
Chapter 94
I arrested Daniel Ott without incident.
Arrested without incident. That’s always the best line in a report.
With Harry Grissom’s help, we soon had Ott ensconced in an interview room at the Thirteenth Precinct. It might’ve been the fastest I ever got a murder suspect from the field to a full-blown interview.
The room was wired for sound and video, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. He was a tech guy, probably studied engineering. That meant he would be working the room, looking for an escape hatch. Not this time.
I sat behind a cheap wood-veneer table on an uncomfortable plastic chair facing Daniel Ott, who was struggling to get used to the constraint of having his hands cuffed behind his back. He kept knocking the metal against the back of his plastic chair.