The Warning

by Michelle E Lowe

  “What can I do to convince you to let them go?”

  “Well, since you asked mighty nicely, I’ll tell ya what; we’ll give ya’ll the workers and three customers in good faith. But you have to promise that you won’t send any of those nasty policemen in to raid us.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  “Fine, then no hostages! Good-bye.”

  “Wait, wait! Okay!”

  There was another agonizing pause. Grant’s stomach muscles tightened with worry that he’d lost him.

  “Okay, what?”

  “If you send out the hostages, I promise there won’t be any raids. For the moment.” Adding the impromptu condition might jeopardize their negotiation, but he needed to maintain an honest rapport with the man.

  The pressure lifted off him when the man said, “For the moment will work. We’ll send out the hostages… but if you sick your dogs on us, everyone else will be shot to pieces.”

  The line went dead. Grant stood in front of his car and waited.

  After ten minutes, the doors opened and fourteen people trailed out with their hands up or behind their heads. After they left the building, the gunmen slammed the doors and relocked them.

  Nikolai arrived at the Twenty-third Precinct still caught in a whirlwind of confusion and fear. Once they arrived, Mason shoved him inside a small room.

  “Sit down and shut up!” Mason ordered, pointing to a chair behind a metal table in the center of the room.

  He didn’t argue. He had nothing to do with whatever had happened under the Greywacke Arch and felt confident he’d be a free man soon.

  Mason left, slamming the door behind him. Nikolai rubbed his wrists and looked around the room. It was painted a dark greenish color and smelled like a high school gym. A large two-way mirror was in front of him, where people on the other side would be able to watch him. Upon the table sat a cigarette-scarred ashtray.

  He imagined interrogation rooms would be equipped with a blinding light, and walls painted black to give a more formidable effect, as if to spell out end of the line. The lights around this two-way mirror flickered and the asparagus walls, although depressing, weren’t overbearing; they were more sickening than anything else.

  Only a few minutes passed before the door opened. He was surprised that someone had come in so quickly. He’d thought most suspects were kept waiting for hours, giving them time to marinate in their own guilty thoughts before being grilled by a ruthless detective.

  The man who entered was young, tall, and thin. He wore gray slacks, a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up, and a black tie. His dull appearance matched the room perfectly.

  He took the seat across from Nikolai and pulled a small portable TV from a black satchel. He placed the satchel beside his chair when he sat down and pressed a button on the lower right hand of the TV.

  “I’m Detective Shaw,” he introduced as the screen came on. “I’ve got something to show you, but first, I need to ask you some questions.”

  The voice of a reporter came through the television’s tiny speakers, talking about a hostage situation at the bank. The detective reached into his shirt pocket and produced a shiny thin plastic card called a Motion Image Recorder.

  “I want my lawyer,” Nikolai demanded.

  “Why? You’re innocent, aren’t you? If you answer my questions, you could be out of here in minutes.”

  He considered that.

  “Ever been arrested before, Mr. Crowe?”

  “Yeah,” he grudgingly replied.

  “How many times?”

  “Five.”

  “For what?”

  He sighed. “Shoplifting computer supplies, drug possession, underage drinking. Twice on that account.”

  “And?”

  “And,” he said softly, “hacking.”

  “That’s right. You were caught hacking into your high school computer to change your grades.”

  “Yeah,” he admitted.

  “You got two years probation and paid four thousand dollars in damages. You ruined your chances of getting accepted into that private tech school in Australia and went to Kaplan instead. The mayor’s stepson teaches Art History there, did you know that?”

  “Yeah, I had him for a few semesters.”

  The detective smiled and went on. “Tell me what happened this evening, before your arrest.”

  He recalled the moment on the subway train when he’d gotten Jade’s text. “My ex sent me an urgent message to meet her at the park.”

  “You received this message at 5:21 p.m.?”

  They must have gone through his cell phone’s inbox and read Jade’s message. He was relieved. It would be the proof they needed not to link him to the crime.

  “It was about five or so, yeah.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I switched trains and headed for the park. When I got to the bridge, I found someone on the ground. That’s when the cop showed up.”

  Shaw slid the MIR card into a slot at the bottom of the television. The machine hummed as the card loaded. Nikolai didn’t particularly care for the new MIR’s. They might’ve held three times as many gigabytes as any thumb drive, but they were too delicate and always breaking, even prone to scattering data and images if shaken too hard. He never understood why so many defective products were sold.

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Crowe?”

  “I decode viruses for personal and business computers.”

  “How ironic,” Shaw laughed. “An ex-hacker who stops other hackers.”

  “I guess it’s my forte,” he said mildly.

  “Do you have anyone you contact when you go from one job to the next? A boss or supervisor?”

  “No, I work on my own.”

  He had a dream of starting his own decoding business called Virus Bounty Hunters. A good line of work to get into, especially since computer viruses were as common as the cold used to be, even with high-tech security protection. Lately, business has been overwhelmingly good.

  “You’re a freelancer? No one can say you were in a certain place at a certain time?”

  Nikolai suspected where he was going. “Just the cameras,” he said earnestly. “There’re cameras everywhere in the office buildings I worked in today and the subway trains I rode on.”

  It seemed that people weren’t being videotaped only in their homes these days. Cameras were set up all over the city, catching every move a person made. It became impossible for anyone to sneeze without a camera catching it.

  Shaw nodded. “We know you went to your last job in Chelsea at three o’clock. You had it scheduled in your phone. What you did during your workday doesn’t concern us; it’s what you did afterwards that does.” Still looking at the screen, he said, “You say she was your ex. Why did you two split up?”

  He ran his hands through his hair. His mouth went dry when he began talking. “She told me she wasn’t happy with the relationship and that we needed some time apart.”

  “So, she broke up with you?”

  He slumped and smacked his dry lips while nodding pitifully.

  “Why wasn’t she happy?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. She only told me she needed some space.”

  “Ouch. Okay, what I don’t understand is why an ex-boyfriend would rush to meet his ex after a long day’s work. I would’ve told her to go to hell.”

  “It wasn’t like that between us,” he said defensively. “I loved her. I … I still love her.”

  A brief silence fell over the room before Shaw said, “That’s very Romeo of you, Mr. Crowe, but I still don’t see how you could’ve gotten a message at 5:21 from a woman who was most likely dead at that time.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone!” he fired back. “I told you the truth. Check the footage on Route A. You’ll see me on the train at five this evening checking my fucking messages!”

  “You know what I think?” Shaw said, keeping calm. “I think you sent those messages to yourself after killing her in
side her apartment. Some pathetic attempt to cover up your tracks, perhaps. You say you loved her. Maybe when she broke up with you, you couldn’t handle it. Maybe you decided if you couldn’t have her, nobody else would. A good lookin’ kid like you must have a big ego.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” he repeated in a lower voice.

  The detective stood with the TV. “Y’know, it’s funny what you said earlier about the cameras.” He handed the TV to Nikolai. “You ought to see what a few cameras caught in the building where your ex lived.”

  Nikolai hesitated taking it.

  “Go on, take a look.”

  He slowly reached over the table, grabbed the TV, and sat back down to view the video already in play. The footage showed nothing more than the lobby of Jade’s apartment building with the time and date in the left-hand corner. The date was current and the time was 4:43 p.m.

  The detective lit a cigarette. At the flick of his lighter and the aroma of rich tobacco smoke, Nikolai felt tempted to ask for one. Instead, he stayed focused on the screen and saw something that made him drop the TV. An exact replica of himself walked through the lobby.

  “Hey, watch it, asshole,” Shaw scolded. “That’s mine.”

  He became short of breath. His hands shook like he had Parkinson’s as he lifted the TV.

  The look-alike wore a pair of old jeans and a green army jacket speckled with white paint. He recognized the jacket. He owned one just like it, which he’d worn when he painted houses as part of his community service.

  The jacket could’ve come from any Salvation Army store; but the paint, it’s too distinctive to explain. Who the hell has been in my apartment?

  As soon as the look-alike vanished off screen, the image switched to another camera view of him approaching an elevator. When the doors slid open, the image switched again, showing a couple leaving the elevator as the look-alike entered. The picture was clear enough to depict every detail of this duplicate; the dim elevator light shining on his dark auburn hair; even the pupils in his blue eyes stood out. The details of the look-alike’s face fit his own so precisely Nikolai almost believed it was him.

  The look-alike pressed a button in the elevator. Number five. Jade’s floor.

  Shocked, he looked up at Shaw as he leaned against the wall. Nikolai returned his eyes to the screen. His look-alike left the elevator before another shot of him appeared. He headed down a short hallway to door number 56 and knocked. The door was at the end of the hall and in direct view of the camera. When it opened, Jade stood in the doorway. Her expression was a pleasant one. She said something to the look-alike before moving aside to let him inside.

  “No,” he quietly choked.

  The door closed. The time on screen was 4:48 p.m.

  “Now watch this part,” Shaw said, suddenly standing beside him.

  The screen clicked off for a split-second before the picture reappeared. The view was the same; the only difference was the time, which now read 5:28 p.m., forty minutes after the look-alike had gone into the apartment and eight minutes after he’d gotten the text message on the subway train.

  The door opened and the look-alike came out, wearing the army jacket inside out. He wasn’t alone. Slung over his shoulder was Jade’s red sleeping bag. She’d bought it after moving to California to go beach camping. It looked heavy, and the man struggled a bit carrying it. What he’d stuffed inside was no mystery—it was a body—and he hauled it down the hallway, into the elevator.

  The portable TV now shook viciously in his hands. He continued to stare at it even after the screen went blank. His eyes stung with the hot tears welling in them.

  “There’s more footage of you going down to the garage and shoving the body into the trunk of the victim’s car,” Shaw said, taking the TV from him. “There’s no doubt that person on camera is you.” He walked around the table and took a seat and dabbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. He coughed.

  Nikolai could barely speak. “It’s … it’s not real,” he said while tears rolled down his face. “Jade isn’t dead.”

  “Stop playing innocent!” Shaw shouted, slamming his fist on the table. “It’s all right there. The video came straight from the apartment building. It hasn’t been tampered with. There’re eyewitnesses who saw you in the building. You killed Jade Sho.”

  He shook his head, still trying to absorb what he’d seen. “I was on the subway at that time.”

  “Do you have any witnesses who can verify seeing you on the street or on the train?”

  It was a stupid question. There’d been hundreds of people around him all day. Each face blurred into the next. But no one could vouch for someone they wouldn’t remember seeing. He lowered his head in defeat and shook it.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  He wiped the tears away and remembered. “My clothes.”

  He wore a dark gray dress shirt, black cargo pants, a black jacket, and a pair of black boots. “That man had on different clothes.”

  Shaw studied him with an unconvinced expression. “We suspect you changed in the victim’s car before dumping the body. We found the bloodstained jacket in the trunk. The DNA from the blood belonged to the victim.” He bent over to reach into his satchel and brought out a notebook and a pen. “Now,” he said, slapping the pen on the notebook and sliding both over the table, “you’re going to write your confession.”

  Shaw stood and knocked on the door. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  A tiny green light flashed beside the handle. A guard opened the door for Shaw, then closed it behind him, leaving Nikolai alone with the notebook. He felt sick to his stomach.

  What the hell is happening? Why is this happening?

  All the evidence pointed to him.

  He took the pen and flipped the notebook open. He pressed the tip between the two blue lines, hesitating. An ink spot formed on the paper before he began writing.

  Mason stood behind the mirror, watching Crowe. The side door opened and Detective Shaw walked in.

  “I can’t believe he’s confessing so easily,” Mason remarked. “I thought he’d fight a little more.”

  The detective slung his satchel onto his shoulder as he joined Mason in front of the window. “I’m glad he didn’t put up much of a fight; I’m ready to wrap this thing up. Did you call the mayor?”

  “Yep. There’s no going back now.”

  The moment Crowe finished, they left for the interrogation room. The tiny green light flickered and the door opened. Shaw and Mason stepped in; Mason stood by the open door as Shaw picked up the notebook.

  “It’ll go easier for you now that you’ve confessed.” Shaw perused the statement, then shot his head back to Crowe. “What the fuck is this?” he demanded, slamming the notebook onto the table. “This isn’t a confession!”

  “Yes, it is,” Crowe returned. “It’s just as I told you. I got off work, got onto the subway, and received a message from Jade. I then went to the park, found a dead body, and got arrested. That’s what happened and that’s what I wrote.”

  Shaw ripped the page from the coil binder and crumpled it in his hand. “This is toilet paper, not a confession. You need to write that you killed Jade Sho in her apartment and that Officer Mason caught you in the process of dumping her body in the park.”

  “No!” Crowe fired back. He stood and looked Shaw in the eye. “I won’t confess to something I didn’t do. I didn’t kill anyone and I don’t give a damn if you have video of me doing it. That wasn’t me; I wasn’t there today. If you think my statement is toilet paper, then you can wipe your fucking ass with it.”

  Mason ran at Crowe with his nightstick. Crowe backed away, but the stick still struck him hard in the stomach. Crowe doubled over, and Mason whacked the metal stick across the small of Crowe’s back, knocking him to his hands and knees. Mason yanked him up by the collar and threw him against the wall.

  “You best start listening,” Mason growled through his teeth. “This isn’t going to get any easier if you keep de
nying what you did.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Crowe gasped, choking back the tears.

  Mason raised his club again.

  “Paul!”

  He froze and turned as Shaw lowered his cell phone from his ear.

  “That was the chief. He wants us to bring Crowe to him. Immediately.”

  Chapter 3

  Reporter Sakura Yoko faced the news camera. “We’re standing live on 179 East 94th Street, in front of the First National Bank of Manhattan, where a bank robbery has turned into a standoff between police and suspects. For those of you just tuning in, earlier this evening six masked marauders stormed the bank. Here with me now is one of the fourteen hostages released by the gunmen.” She drew the microphone to a man standing beside her. “Sir, tell us what happened in there.”

  “Yeah, it was like this,” he said with a thick Jersey accent. “I was seein’ about a loan when these guys came in and demanded that we get on the floor. I just caught a flash of a piece before I was eatin’ tile.”

  “How did they choose which hostages to let go?”

  “Weird you’d ask that, ’cause they were choosy.”

  Sakura pounced on the word. “Choosy? Can you elaborate?”

  “Yeah, you see, while we were on the ground, two of them stepped over us, saying, ‘This one, not this one, this one, this one, not this one, and this one.’ Like that, y’know? Strange.”

  “We’re just glad you’re safe,” Sakura said, turning back to the camera. “As of now, we don’t know how many are left inside, and … what’s that, Jen?” She stopped to listen to what the anchorwoman back at the news station said. “I’ve tried,” she defended while stomping her foot, “but no one seems to have any comment at this time.” She returned to her reporting. “Reporting live from Channel Eight News, I’m Sakura Yoko.”

  “And we’re off,” Kenny Wright said, lowering the camera.

  “I hate that bitch,” Sakura blurted. “She’s always trying to make me look bad.”

  “What did she say this time?”

  She slipped her pump off and raised her leg to rub her aching foot.