by Blake Banner
I butted in. “Is there a cellar?”
He still looked scandalized. “What?”
“Is there a cellar?” My voice rang out loud and ugly. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “Is there a goddamn cellar?”
He looked terrified. Jennifer had her hands over her mouth. He said, “Yes,” and led me to the kitchen. The cellar door was not locked. I switched on the light and ran down. Peter and the captain followed. As with the other house, it was one large room. There was a boiler against one wall. There was a washing machine and a dryer. There were boxes stacked here and there. I went to each wall, tapping, listening for a hollow echo. I felt sick. My heart was racing. I checked my phone. I had two minutes.
Suddenly, something snapped, and I lunged at him and grabbed him by the throat with my left hand. I had my automatic in my right, and I thrust it in his face and screamed at him, “Where is she? Tell me where you have her or I swear I’ll blow your fucking brains all over the walls!”
The captain was shouting at me, “John! John! Get a grip!”
Peter had his eyes closed and was repeating, “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!”
Then there was a noise. It was loud and jarring, and we all stopped and stared at each other. My skin went cold and pasty, and I felt my hair prickle. It was an electronic beeping, like an alarm clock on a cell phone.
I heard myself say, “No…”
I pulled Dehan’s phone from my pocket. The time was up.
And in that instant it hit me.
I ran.
I ran scrambling up the stairs. I could hear the captain shouting after me. I ignored him and bolted through the house. Jennifer was there, still with her hands over her mouth. I leapt down the steps and sprinted along the wet pavement toward Barkley Avenue, with the rain drenching my hair and my face. It must have taken me twenty seconds, no more, but each stride was an eternity. I skidded and fell on the corner. Scrambled to my feet and ran for the alley.
Another agonizing twenty seconds. My lungs were screaming. My heart was pounding so hard I felt my head was going to explode. I was screaming her name through the rain. I stared at the lockups. Which one?
“Which one?”
I blew the lock off Peter’s and hauled up the roller blind. It was empty. I ran across to the GCS units. I blew off the lock on the first and dragged up the blind. There were only computers. I went to the next, took aim, and that was when I smelled it. I froze. Then I put on the safety and hammered the padlock with the butt of my gun. It sprang and I dragged the door open.
There was a canister of butane gas. There was a valve with a timer attached. It was hissing loudly. Dehan was lying on the floor. Her wrists and ankles were tightly bound with duct tape. She had tape across her mouth. Her eyes were closed, and her skin was cold and pale like marble.
I bit back the tears and whispered, “No… Oh no…”
I turned off the gas and picked her up in my arms. I carried her out into the rain and laid her on the ground. I pulled the tape from her mouth and felt for a pulse in her neck. There was nothing. She was dead. I pumped her chest, pinched her nose, and blew hard into her mouth. Pumped again on her chest. Blew hard into her mouth. Pumped.
I pulled my penknife from my pocket and cut the tape from her wrists, spreading her arms out to open up her lungs. I shouted at her, “Come on, goddamn it, Dehan! Don’t do this to me!”
I pounded hard on her chest again, pumped up and down, put my mouth over hers, and blew hard and steady.
She made a horrible noise, like a car that won’t start. Her eyes snapped open, and she gasped in great gulps of air. Then she rolled on her side and vomited, copiously. I stood and looked away, clenching my teeth and blessing the rain for hiding my tears, mixed with laughter and sobs of relief.
A figure was moving up the alley at a run. It was the captain. I shouted to him in a strangled voice. “She’s alive. But we need an ambulance!”
He stopped running and pulled his cell from his pocket, striding toward us as he dialed. I turned back to Dehan and knelt by her side. She looked yellow in the limpid light. She tried a smile but didn’t quite make it.
“I knew you’d come.”
I picked her up in my arms and carried her back toward Barkley Avenue. I said softly, “Who was it, Dehan? Who did this to you?”
She looked up into my face and touched my cheek with her fingers. “I don’t remember anything, Stone. Except I knew you’d come.”
TWENTY-ONE
I had my ass on my desk, and the captain was sitting in Dehan’s chair. It was nine p.m. and I had just got back from the hospital.
“How is she?”
“She’s very sick, but the doctor said she’ll make a full recovery in a day or two. She hadn’t inhaled enough gas to cause permanent damage. But if I had been a minute longer…” I shook my head. “Hell! If I had shot the lock, neither of us would be here right now.”
He smiled. “How many locks did you blow away today, John?”
“I guess I lost it.”
“You two are a good team. You care about each other.”
I shrugged. “What about Sanchez and his partner? Did they find anything?”
“Davis. Yup. In their bedroom, Sanchez found an envelope containing a silver David’s star on a chain. On the back, it was engraved ‘To Carmen Dehan, from Mom and Daddy, on her first birthday, May 9, 1991.’”
He tossed it on the desk. It was in a plastic evidence bag. I picked it up and looked at it. It was the one I had helped her put on in Oacoma.
“Anything else?”
“The duct tape you sent in? The piece that had her phone stuck to the guy’s van?” I nodded. “It’s the same as the stuff that was used to bind her ankles and wrists, and it has a clear thumbprint on it. Peter’s.”
I stared at him for a bit. “Just one?”
“That’s all they could get at the lab.” He studied my face a moment and decided to ignore my expression. “I’ve arrested him. He’s in the cell downstairs talking to his lawyer. Whenever you want to interrogate him…”
I gave a couple of slow nods. “Yeah, I’ll talk to him now.”
We walked together to the interrogation room. As I was going in, the captain put a hand on my arm.
“I’ll be in the observation room, John. You got your shit together?”
“Yeah.”
“No more threats of violence. No more violence, or we lose the case.”
“I know. I’m okay.”
A couple of uniforms brought Peter in about five minutes later. He was cuffed and he sat opposite me. He looked very pale and very scared. His lawyer came in after him. He didn’t look happy either. He sat next to Peter and said, “My client is going to present a complaint against the city for police brutality. Are you Detective Stone?”
“Yeah.”
“The complaint will cite you specifically, Detective Stone.”
“Fine. We are not here to discuss your civil suits, Mr. Smith. We are here to discuss your attempted murder of Detective Dehan.”
“That is a lie and an outrage! I have never laid a hand on Detective Dehan, or anybody else!”
I held up a hand. “Let’s take it one step at a time, shall we, Mr. Smith? I know you are a methodical man, and you like to do things methodically… isn’t that right, Peter?”
His lawyer put his hand on Peter’s arm. “You don’t need to answer that, Peter. Can we stick to the point, please, Detective Stone? My client has not been arrested for being methodical.”
Like most lawyers, this one was going to be a pain in the ass.
“Have you any reason for not wanting to acknowledge that you are methodical and systematic?”
Before his lawyer could intervene, his vanity got the better of him. “I am a methodical and systematic man. What of it?”
“So you’ll have no trouble telling me where you were yesterday afternoon at a quarter to three.”
“I already told your captain, I was at home, working.”
“Have you go
t anybody who can verify that?”
“Of course. My wife was with me the whole time.”
“Yeah, see, I was afraid you were going to say that. Because I, personally, wouldn’t believe a word your wife says in your defense, and neither will the jury, because she is so obviously terrified of you.”
“What? That’s ridiculous…”
“Is it? Why do you say that?”
“Why would my wife be terrified of me…?”
“I don’t know, Peter. Why would she be terrified of you?”
His lawyer spoke up. “Detective Stone, you are deliberately confusing my client, presenting his own question to him as though it were an admission.”
“Do you inflict physical violence on your wife, Peter? Or only psychological violence?”
“Don’t answer that.”
He swallowed.
I went on. “I am just trying to establish why she is so scared of you.”
“She isn’t!”
“Okay, so you claim that you were at home at two forty-five.”
“I don’t claim. I was at home.”
“So when you telephoned Detective Dehan, you called her from home?”
“What?”
“Peter, the question is a very clear, simple one. Did you telephone Detective Dehan from home at two forty-five yesterday afternoon?”
He was shaking his head and looking at me as though I was crazy. “I didn’t call her from anywhere. I haven’t telephoned Detective Dehan in my life. I don’t even know her number.”
I frowned at the file I had open in front of me. “But this is your number, isn’t it?”
I slid the print out across the table and pointed to where it showed the last call to Dehan’s cell. He stared at it a moment and then stared at me.
“But that’s my cell number.”
“Yes, Peter, that is your cell number. So when you made that call, at two forty-five, where were you?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“You don’t get it. I did not make that call. I could not have made that call. I haven’t got my cell phone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I lost my phone.”
I laughed. “When was that?”
“A couple of days ago.”
“How convenient.”
“I am telling you! I lost my phone!”
“Well, then, Peter, perhaps you can explain something else to me.”
“Dear God!”
“Have you ever seen this phone before?” I showed him Dehan’s phone in a plastic evidence bag.
“Not that I am aware of, no.”
“How about this duct tape?”
He shrugged. “It’s duct tape.”
“Have you ever seen that piece of duct tape before?”
“How the hell should I know? No! I haven’t!”
His lawyer said, “How is my client meant to tell that particular piece of tape from any other?”
“Well, you see, Peter, the thing is that you very carelessly left your thumbprint on that piece of tape.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. His lips worked like he was trying to form a word, like he couldn’t find words to describe just how stupid I must be.
“You’re lying, and you know you are lying.”
I turned the bag over to show him where the dusted thumbprint had shown up. “While you’re at it, Peter, maybe you can also tell me about this. What is this?”
I put Dehan’s pendant in front of him. He stared at it, shook his head, and shrugged.
“It’s a Jewish star. St. David’s. What do you want me to say?”
“I’d like you to tell me if you have seen it before.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Then perhaps you can explain how it came to be in your bedside table drawer, and why it has your thumbprint on it.”
His jaw actually dropped, and his eyes bulged. “You are fabricating evidence!”
“It’s not that easy, Peter. Your lawyer will explain that to you.”
The lawyer was staring at the evidence bags on the table. He looked annoyed. “Don’t say anything else, Peter.” He looked at me. “I need some time to talk to my client.”
I collected up the evidence and closed the folder. I spoke to the lawyer for the first time. “I want to know about the arms in the lockup twelve years ago. I want to know about the skull in Oacoma and the torso at Miramar. I want to know about the trips to San Diego and L.A. I want to know how many girls he has killed and where their bodies are. You better start getting him adjusted to the fact that the game is over.” I looked at Peter. “Tick tock, Peter.”
I went downstairs and stood in the doorway, looking at the interminable silver needles of rain falling listless into the puddles on the road, making ripples that went nowhere. The cars in the lot shone wet, but their windshields looked black and blind.
What was I not seeing? What was I missing?
My cell rang. It was the lab.
“Stone? It’s Penny from the lab.”
“Hey, Penny. What have you got?”
“The skull you sent in?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you’d like to know. We managed to extract enough material for a DNA match with the arms.”
“That’s great. Is it the same girl?”
“Yes, it was the same girl.”
“Thanks, Penny.”
I hung up and stood staring at the burnished copper ripples on the road. Somewhere in San Diego, a mother and a father still didn’t know that their daughter was dead. I climbed the stairs, dialing the San Diego PD. I spoke to a Lieutenant Scott. I told him about the arms and about the skull, and that we had reason to believe that the victim was originally from San Diego. I said if he wanted, I could email him the details of the skull in case they had dental records they could match it with.
He thanked me, but he didn’t seem awfully interested.
TWENTY-TWO
I went back to the interrogation room. Peter looked even more drawn and pale. His lawyer looked even more unhappy than he had before. He drew breath to speak, but Peter said, “You are making a mistake!”
His lawyer looked irritated. “My client is adamant that this evidence is false.”
“So somebody is framing you, Peter?”
He nodded vigorously. “Yeah. You! You’ve had this case hanging there, unsolved, for twelve years because you are too damned incompetent to crack it, and now you want to close it so you think, oh, we’ll pin it on the guy who found the arms in the first place!”
I looked at his lawyer. “You should explain to your client just how difficult that would be.”
He ignored my suggestion and asked me, “Have you any more questions, Detective?”
“Yeah. Tell me about the house on Jackson Avenue.”
Petere closed his eyes and sank back in his chair. His lawyer was looking at him like he wanted to shoot him. “What is this now, Peter?”
Peter covered his face with his hands. “God! You people!”
“You had better explain. Did you take Dehan there?”
“No! For God’s sake, Detective!” He stuck his arm out, like he was pointing at the house on Jackson Avenue. “It’s a… a place where I go to relax. You’ve seen my wife, Detective. She is a very good, dutiful wife, but she isn’t exactly setting the world on fire, is she?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, I can tell you, she is not! A man needs…” He stared at me, furious that I was forcing him to lose his dignity. “A man has certain needs! I use that house to satisfy those needs.”
“Needs like killing and dismembering young women?”
“For God’s sake! No!” He ran his fingers through his hair. “This is madness!” He sat forward. “Even you must be aware that there are a lot of prostitutes in that part of the Bronx. They provide me with a level of sexual satisfaction that my wife cannot.”
“Did you pick up prostitutes in San Diego and L.A.?
”
“Once or twice.”
“Did you kill them?”
“No!”
“Have you ever been to Oacoma?”
“I have passed through…”
“Twelve years ago?”
“Almost certainly, more than once—why?”
His lawyer had given up and was just staring at his hands. I drummed the table with my fingers.
“Say I wanted to go with a really hot whore, could you recommend one?”
The lawyer raised his face to stare at me. Peter looked astonished. He hesitated. His lawyer turned to look at him. “Well, yes, a couple. But they’re not cheap.”
“How much?”
“The really good ones you’re talking about two hundred or two hundred and fifty an hour.”
I smiled. “And how long would you keep going, Peter?”
His face turned serious. “Well, we’ve had sessions of a couple of hours on occasion.”
“Couple of hours, huh? Five hundred bucks. And what do you get for that? What will they do for you?”
“A bit of bondage, domination…”
“You or them?”
“Depends what mood I’m in. Both.”
“I want their names.”
He heaved another sigh and wrote down a couple of names with phone numbers. I folded the paper and put it in my wallet. Then I took out my cell and took a photograph of him.
I was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then I leaned forward across the table.
“Peter, I don’t know if you fully appreciate how much trouble you are in. There is very compelling evidence tying you to Detective Dehan’s abduction and attempted murder. And that, in turn, ties you to the murder of a young girl in San Diego who disappeared during one of your trips out there. Her head turns up in Oacoma, where you passed through, and her arms turn up in your lockup.”
His lawyer butted in. “That is purely circumstantial.”
I nodded. “Yeah, but it is tied so tight to the abduction and attempted murder that any jury is going to buy the whole lot as a package, and you know it.” I turned back to Peter. “Now, so far your only defense is that the cops are trying to frame you so they can get shot at a cold case. And that is not going to wash. So you need to be doing some real, serious thinking, Peter, either about a credible defense, or about a full, frank confession.” I stood. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
