Harvest

by Robert Pobi

  The next day Shea and that tumor of a sidekick, Nicky, had walked up behind Mank and put two rounds into his spine and two more into his brain as he lay screaming in pain on the pavement. There were three witnesses who identified Shea and Nicky. After the first witness didn’t come home from work one afternoon, the remaining two decided that they had not seen a thing. Shea and Nicky walked.

  After three weeks of sleepless nights and more tears than she thought she was capable of producing, she got into her car, drove across the Brooklyn Bridge, and paid Shea a visit.

  The investigating officers put a lot of horsepower into tracing the anonymous call that had warned Shea. They chased it down to a prepaid AT&T cell phone, purchased five months before the shooting and prepaid for a year in advance. It had never been used except for that one time. Then it dropped off the face of the earth. The wiretap had recorded an electronic—not modified human—voice generated by an AT&T text-to-speech program available for free on the Internet.

  Since there was no way to tie the call to Hemingway, and since her placing the call would have endangered her own life, all charges were dropped.

  And it all came back because the city smelled like the last night she spent with Mank.

  Her cell vibrated, signaling a text, and she snapped out of her memories, consciously removing her hand from her belly.

  As Phelps pulled the heavy truck through traffic, she scanned the message, thinking it was from the medical examiner.

  It read:

  I’M NOT FINISHED.

  BUT YOU ARE.

  The message had come from Tyler Rochester’s phone.

  ||| FIFTY-ONE

  HEMINGWAY CALLED Carson on the car’s wireless and had him slave Tyler Rochester’s signal to the GPS function on her phone, remotely downloading the appropriate software patch. The process chewed up nearly four minutes including a phone reboot.

  She checked the screen and held it up for Phelps to see. Then she asked the disembodied voice of Carson, “You certain?”

  There was the distant tinny sound of keys being struck. “Absofuckinglutely. He’s on a boat. The coordinates are right in line with the Staten Island Ferry. It just left the Whitehall Terminal. ETA St. George Terminal is twenty-two minutes.”

  “We’ll be there in five,” she said, and the big man in the gray suit punched his foot to the carpet and the Suburban rocketed south.

  ———

  The collective hive of the NYPD had pulled together and when they arrived at Battery Park, a departmental boat was waiting for them. As they climbed aboard, the pilot told them they’d do it with a little over four minutes to spare. They had already called the captain of the ferry and told him to slow the boat down as much as he could—a maneuver that would get them two more minutes.

  The inside of the St. George Ferry Terminal looked like a small-town airport in Cold War Eastern Europe, a dreary cavern of gray paint over concrete block. After the police boat docked, Hemingway and Phelps swept through the building with Frank Delaney, the head of security for the MTA South Ferry terminal. Delaney was a small wiry man who looked like a kid playing grown-up beside the two cops, but his thirty-one years of experience were evident in the way he had set things up. All the exits were manned and everyone in security had been told no one was to leave the building except through a single manned set of doors until one minute before the ferry docked. After that it was on a person-by-person basis and all passengers had to go through the cops.

  As they ran through the building, Hemingway’s stomach tightened up, rebelling after twelve minutes pounding the waves in the Zodiac. She wasn’t normally prone to any kind of motion sickness but the mix of exhaust, heat, and an MSG-laden lunch seemed to be doing some previously unknown voodoo on her. She hoped she wouldn’t have to chuck in a garbage can.

  “You okay?” Phelps asked, trying not to sound concerned but unable to hide it.

  “I’m not convinced that this is a good expenditure of resources.”

  The killer wouldn’t be on the boat. She knew it and Phelps knew it. And Delaney probably knew it, too. Their killer wasn’t the kind of guy to send a text from a ferry; ghosts didn’t do things like that. He was long gone.

  What was he up to? He didn’t make a move that hadn’t been rehearsed in his head a thousand times.

  “You gonna have a lotta upset people coming off the ferry,” Delaney said.

  Hemingway made an effort to respect anyone who functioned under the umbrella of security—public or private—and she had a lot of respect for the MTA guys, who were continually bombarded with the sleaziest kinds of crimes. She had fought her way up to the rank of detective, busting her ass to overcome sexism and good old-fashioned ignorance, and she refused to dole it out to anyone else. Although many of the other detectives never actually expressed disdain for anyone of lower rank or station on the job, Hemingway had seen enough guys lose valuable allegiances due to mine-is-bigger-than-yours situations. Even Phelps, who she considered the last of the old-school gentlemen, sometimes pulled rank for no reason she could see. She thought of it as testosterone poisoning and ego massaging for the most part. But a man like Delaney could be their best asset—or their worst enemy—and she refused to lose a case because of ego.

  They followed him to the ramp where the ferry would dock. Hemingway was glad that the running portion of the program was over but her stomach still felt like it was being squeezed by an oily fist.

  Silty gray clouds deadened the Hudson as the sky geared up for more histrionics. The ferry was a few minutes out, a moving part in the much larger clockworks of the city behind it.

  Hemingway leaned on the railing and took in a deep breath, hoping that the upset stomach wouldn’t come back. She asked Delaney, “What did you tell the captain of the ferry?”

  He shrugged. “Just what you told me to—to slow it down as much as he could and to dock according to protocol. From there your people would run the show. Your uniformed officers will handle screening the passengers as they disembark.”

  It was time for a little diplomacy. “I know that technically this is an MTA affair, but we are looking for someone who is—”

  “Above my pay grade?” he asked, smiling like this was one grand adventure.

  Hemingway hadn’t given Delaney any specifics but she needed him to understand that this guy was dangerous. “It’s not a question of pay grade, it’s about safety. I don’t want you to lose any people because we downplayed the situation.”

  “This guy some terrorist asshole? I ain’t never had a terrorist asshole on one of my boats.”

  “I’d take a terrorist over this guy anytime.”

  From where they stood, the city didn’t look that far away unless you tried to see movement, then you realized how distant it was. There were no gulls riding the breeze and when she swiveled her head toward the dock cranes of Jersey the sky was empty of any movement except a few errant jet streams over Newark. She looked down at the water, at the garbage floating in the dark waters, and wondered if they’d get this guy before they found another boy floating out there.

  Once again she found herself drawn back to wonder what had happened to Trevor Deacon’s victims. Forty-four boys that they knew about—and probably more that they didn’t—had been subtracted from society by that creep. Had they floated by here on their way out to sea? Would they ever know?

  Standing there, watching the gentle slosh of the waves against the pilings, she felt her stomach tighten again, threatening to send their earlier lunch of dumplings and root beer scurrying for daylight.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Phelps asked from her right.

  “Yeah. Fine. Fuck.” She sounded irritated and immediately regretted it.

  Delaney, sensing a weak spot in the conversation, jumped in. “You’re the same Hemingway who shot those guys in Brooklyn a few years back, ain’t ya?”

  She nodded, hoping that he’d leave it at that; they rarely did and Delaney was no exception.

  “That took
some guts, detective. Walking in there and all. Musta seen that video a hunert times on the news. No bulletproof vest or nothin’?”

  She shook her head but closed her eyes, hoping her stomach would settle down. If she waited him out he’d eventually change topics. They always did when faced with silence.

  “They shoulda made you chief after that. How many guys—or ladies, excuse my French—can walk into a room full of armed assholes, draw second, and clean the place out? I been in security all my life and I ain’t never seen anything like it. That was Dirty Harry kind of shooting.” He leaned forward. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you got big balls for a lady.”

  With her eyes still closed she said, “I get that a lot.”

  Delaney pulled out a pack of cigarettes, held it up. “You mind?”

  She opened her eyes, stared at him. Besides Phelps and the cops standing back in the shadows, the dock was empty. She couldn’t very well protest on their behalf, even if it was a law—this was his turf and he was doing them a lot of favors. “Not at all.” And that little voice that had not yet said anything—had only made its presence known by occasionally nudging her subconscious—reminded her that she was pregnant.

  And it sunk in a little more. The irrevocability of the coming decision. Maybe she and Daniel would have the baby. Maybe a few. Raise a family and grow old and maybe nothing bad would ever happen to their children.

  Why not?

  Because that would take a commitment. A commitment to Daniel. A commitment to the baby. And, more importantly, a commitment to herself. Jesus, how did people say yes to this? A child wasn’t like a house you didn’t like or a marriage you no longer wanted to be in; there were no outs. It was a commitment until you stopped existing. Which in practical terms meant forever.

  What kind of a choice was that?

  She stepped sideways to avoid the smoke. It was a forgivable compromise. After all, how much carbon was she sucking down each and every day in the way of car exhaust?

  Phelps pulled her aside and held up the schematics Delaney gave them. “We’ll sweep the ferry from front to back. Delaney’s guy says it’s easy if we put men on the stairwells here, here, here, and here. And two more over here. It should be a ten-minute job.”

  Hemingway turned to the boat coming in. “He’s not on the boat. He gave Tyler Rochester’s phone to someone else. Maybe even a kid—wouldn’t that be a sick fucking joke?”

  “You want to call it off?”

  “We can’t do that on the off chance that he really is there and I don’t want to send a bunch of cops onto the ferry unless they’re in combat mode. It’s all in or all out. This guy has killed enough people already.”

  The ferry was closing the gap and the faces of the people on board would soon be discernible.

  “You can’t be standing on the dock when the boat pulls in, Hemi. This guy knows you. Stay out of sight.”

  That Phelps was right didn’t make it any easier—she was point man on this case and the idea of anyone else walking into her mess felt wrong. “I’ll go wait inside.”

  Delaney, whose attention seemed to be nailed to his smoke, waved her over. “Come on, you can watch the whole thing on our security system.” He dropped his cigarette over the railing and headed up the ramp.

  ||| FIFTY-TWO

  HE FACED the door, waiting for it to open. The noise—the hum of people, the sound of engines—did not exist. His focus was reduced to the bright polished bronze knob. He wanted to reach out, to touch it, but that was not part of the plan. He was to wait until she came through. He had played this moment out in his head and now was not a time to make adjustments—this was a time to act, not react. No changes could be made. No substitutions.

  She would open the door and see him. Smile. Maybe even recognize him. He would smile back, because that was what should be done—what was expected. She would come to him. And he’d lift his arm.

  She might see the blade.

  There would be that tiny instant when she would flinch. Maybe step back.

  Then her fingers would go to her throat.

  She’d hit the floor.

  And he would lean over her and watch her die.

  Because that’s what he did.

  ||| FIFTY-THREE

  THE BOAT, though technically female following nautical tradition, floated under the moniker the MV Andrew J. Barberi. She was a big bitch, measuring more than three hundred feet in length with a width of almost seventy and tipped the scales at a solid 3,334 gross tons. Able to carry up to six thousand passengers through the worst that the Hudson had to offer at a respectable sixteen knots. Orange and yellow. Without grace. Or elegance.

  Hemingway’s focus shifted from one monitor to the next as she tried to see into the two-dimensional representations of the Barberi. Delaney stood at her side, chomping on an unlit cigarette, instinctively following Phelps and the uniformed officers as they wove through the 2,361 passengers.

  The city had gone crazy with surveillance systems after 9/11 and the MTA was no exception; she was looking at millions of dollars’ worth of paranoia.

  Hemingway stayed in contact with Phelps through a headset Delaney had given her—more toys from the new antiterrorist budget. “Where is he?” she asked, and the image of Phelps on the monitor shrugged in response.

  She slid her line of sight across the monitors, searching the crowd for someone—anyone—who might be their killer, looking for . . . What exactly was she looking for? Some looked tired; some looked pissed off; some looked high; some even looked happy.

  But none of them looked like they got their jollies by taking little boys apart.

  She watched Phelps set his shoulders and plow through the crowd, a pair of patrolmen in tow. She had come to love him in their almost seven years of protecting and serving. Not because he had adopted the role of surrogate father in her life. And not because he bought her shrimp shumai every Wednesday. But because he was a good man.

  And he had never asked her about that phone call to Shea.

  Phelps moved forward. His head swiveled back and forth on his stubble-dusted neck as his eyes took in the people and reactions around him. Down there, in the arena, Phelps would smell him out because that’s what he had been designed to do.

  Hemingway watched the monitors, wishing she were there with him. They had stared down everything from a Bell Atlantic employee with nine sticks of TNT strapped to his chest to a hostage taking at the Met, and sitting here looking at Phelps do this alone felt like some form of acute betrayal.

  Phelps pushed through a throng of passengers, following the beacon on the screen of Hemingway’s phone.

  Hemingway’s eyes slid from one passenger to another; none of them seemed to notice Phelps. They stared ahead, shuffling forward in uneven baby steps like cattle.

  Phelps’s voice came out of the speaker. “It’s right here.” He stopped and his head swiveled back and forth.

  The two uniformed cops spun in place.

  “We’re right on top of the signal,” he repeated.

  “He’s below you, Jon.” She glanced sideways and Delaney nodded. “Or above you.”

  Delaney picked up a headset that was patched in but not being used. “Go to the far end of the deck. Take the stairs down. There’s a pair of doors on the landing—on either side of the staircase. The codes are . . . ,” Delaney reached into his pocket and brought up the notes he had jotted down before Phelps had gone on board. “Eight eight oh one three.”

  “Eight eight oh one three,” Phelps repeated.

  “Both doors go down to the maintenance corridor that leads to the engine room. If he’s below you, he’ll be in one of the tool rooms. They’re marked in red. We don’t have surveillance cameras down there.” He kept the headset in his hand.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Passengers are not supposed to be down there. And we don’t hire no terrorist assholes.”

  Phelps nodded and headed for the stairwell to the door that would take him
to the engine level. She keyed the mic again. “Jon, be careful. If he’s there, he’s waiting for you.”

  Phelps nodded and she saw his head tilt to the side like it did when he smiled. The action said, Don’t worry about me, little lady.

  Phelps moved down the steps and stopped on the landing in front of the door. He reached out and grabbed the handle.

  From her perch in the control room, Hemingway saw his fingers connect with the metal and twist. The door swung in. He stepped forward. And off the screen.

  ||| FIFTY-FOUR

  THE SOUND of the engines was no longer a subtle vibration that hit his inner ear but a full-blown presence that shook the floor. Phelps couldn’t hear the men behind him or the sound of his own feet on the deck so he slowed down like he had learned back in the jungle all those lifetimes ago. The maintenance hallway was clean but hadn’t been painted in years and grease and dirt had worked into the cracks. The engines superheated the air down here and the humidity was off the charts. The bright space of the stairwell behind them threw weird spidery shadows across the wall—a dark mass of arms and legs and heads that looked like a misshapen creature moving down a tunnel in search of prey.

  Phelps took in the smell of diesel fuel and heat and solvents. And something else buried beneath it.

  He reached into his coat and wrapped his fingers around the grip of his .45. He slid it out and swept his thumb down over the frame, knocking the safety out of its notch.

  And then the engines stopped.

  They came to the first door and Phelps reached out and touched the bronze knob. It was hot in his palm. He twisted his wrist, took a breath, held it and flung the door in, lining up on the opening with the big automatic.

  It was a supply room, loaded to the ceiling with Styrofoam cups, cases of empty beer bottles, napkins and toilet paper.