by Rick Mofina
“Reeka, why do you automatically assume my story’s wrong?”
“Look, you just need to verify your information, to ensure your source is valid.”
“Valid?”
Kate seized her phone from her bag and began swiping through photos she’d taken, finding the images she was searching for and thrusting them at Reeka.
“This is Jolleen Ballinger, one of the tellers. She’s my source. She spoke with me on the condition of anonymity. She was there when Dan Fulton robbed their branch. I verified the quarter-million-dollar figure with her. She’s valid. I know how to do my job and I did it.”
Reeka looked at the photo, then picked up her pen, rotating it for several seconds.
“Let’s put her name in your story, give it unchallengeable credibility.”
“Did you hear what I just said? This woman trusted me. I gave her my word that Newslead would protect her identity. She was afraid. If I follow your instructions and burn her, we lose credibility.”
“Then call her and request permission to use her name.”
“No! She’s wasn’t at a Yankees’ game, Reeka. Her bank was robbed. This woman’s already traumatized. Pressing her to use her name in a national news story won’t help. In talking to me she took a risk with her employer and the investigation. We need to respect that.”
Reeka remained deep in thought, rocking in her chair until her phone vibrated. Before picking it up, she dismissed Kate with a parting order.
“All right. I want you to stay on this story, keep us out front. But first, you need to verify the two outstanding aspects with your police source. Do it as soon as possible.”
* * *
Biting back on her anger, Kate strode down the hall. She passed Chuck Laneer’s empty office, mourning his departure. This crap with Reeka wouldn’t be happening if Chuck were here. Kate took several deep breaths, chiding herself.
You’ve got to watch your mouth and be smart about this. Use Reeka’s request strategically.
At her desk she fished out the cards Nick Varner and Marv Tilden had given her. She’d planned to call them anyway to try to squeeze more information from them. As icy as they’d been to her, Kate had to admit there was something about Varner that she liked. He had nice eyes, but there seemed to be sadness behind them. She reached for her phone and hit the numbers on her keypad.
The line rang twice.
“Varner.”
“Agent Varner with the FBI?”
“Yes.”
“Kate Page, with Newslead—we met earlier. Do you have a quick second to talk?”
A moment passed.
“Kate, you really should call the FBI or NYPD press office.”
“But your press people aren’t investigating, you are. And as I recall, Detective Tilden requested I run my information by you. I believe you were present when he made that request.”
Another silence.
“All I’m asking for is a little professional courtesy,” Kate said.
“What’ve you got?”
“We’ve reported the amount Fulton took was a quarter million and that he left a note saying bombs had been strapped to him and his family, who were being held hostage. But Signal Point Newswire has the figure at two million and says Fulton’s note warned that a bomb had been placed in the bank. Which version is correct?”
Varner muttered something under his breath.
“Listen,” he said, “like I told you before, this is an extremely active investigation. The release of too much information is dangerous.”
“The story’s already been flashing around the zippers in Times Square. I know you guys don’t like releasing information, but you don’t want misleading stuff out there, that could be dangerous, too.”
She heard his irritation as he exhaled, but sensed him warming to her.
“This is not for attribution to me, not even to the Bureau. You got that?”
“Of course.”
“I’m not confirming anything.”
“Okay.”
“You’d be correct to disregard the information reported by Signal Point.”
“Thank you. Do you have any suspects, or possible motives? What about the family’s history?”
“That’s it, Kate. I’ve got to go. There might be a press conference at One Police Plaza later today.”
After the call, Kate immediately wrote Reeka an email.
Our story’s correct. Signal Point’s is wrong. This has been verified by police sources close to the investigation.
She jabbed the enter key hard, sending it with a vengeance.
Getting up to get a fresh coffee from the lunchroom, Kate reconsidered her initial impression of Varner. He’d impressed her just now. Sure, he’d played the surly investigator at the crime scene, but he’d just demonstrated that he was willing to work with her, which put matters in a different light. What she really liked was how he’d used her first name. That was nice, she thought, adding milk to her coffee when her phone rang.
The caller’s number was blocked.
“Kate Page, Newslead.”
“You’re the reporter who’s asking questions about the Fulton family in Queens?”
The woman on the phone sounded a little shaky, as if she’d had trouble deciding to call.
“Yes.”
“I have information that might help you.”
“That’s great. Who’s this?”
“I... We can’t talk over the phone. Are you in Manhattan? I understand that’s where your office is.”
“Yes, I’m at the office now.”
“Can you meet me in thirty minutes?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t meet with you unless you give me some sense of what you want to talk about.”
The woman hesitated. When she spoke again, her voice quavered.
“I know the truth about Lori Fulton.”
25
New York City
Across the city, near the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge at NYPD Headquarters, Mae Clarke downed the last of her tepid coffee, fighting the urge to get a fresh cup.
She was trying to cut down. Besides, she couldn’t leave her desk because at any moment she was expecting prints on the red ball out of Queens, the bank robbery abduction case. The lab had called her supervisor to say the file was on its way.
Mae shoved a stick of Juicy Fruit in her mouth.
She was one of the NYPD’s best fingerprint techs and she was ready. Investigators had already obtained a set of elimination prints for each of the family members—from the parents’ workplaces, and through a child ID safety program for the son.
That was good.
Although Mae didn’t have prints for their relatives, or for friends or neighbors who may have been invited into the family’s home, she knew that having prints for the key players was a big advantage.
Mae’s computer chimed.
Here we go.
Chewing faster on her gum, she opened the file—a clear set of unidentified impressions from the right hand: one from the right thumb and one from the right forefinger. They’d been collected from balled duct tape.
Mae began studying the loops, whorls and arches, analyzing and comparing them against the elimination set. It didn’t take long to confirm that the prints on the tape did not come from any member of the family.
With a few keystrokes she submitted the unidentified prints to the New York State Criminal History Record Database—the state’s primary system for fingerprint identification. The database stored prints belonging to anyone arrested for a finger-printable offense.
It allowed for rapid searching through a range of state fingerprint files—those taken from crime scenes, from gun permit holders, from various professional license app
lications and also from unsolved cases.
After some thirty seconds, her submission came back with two hits.
That’s a start.
Her keyboard clacked as she submitted the prints to the mother of all databases, the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS. The system held the criminal histories and fingerprints for more than seventy million people in every state across the country, drawn from every local, regional, state and national network.
This search would take a bit longer, so she returned to the lunchroom where she talked herself into a bottle of water instead of the coffee she was really craving. By the time she’d returned to her desk, her search was done.
IAFIS offered a list of five “possibles” who closely matched her unidentified submission. With the two from the New York system, she now had seven candidates.
She unwrapped a fresh stick of gum, enjoying its sweetness as she began making a visual point-by-point comparison between the duct tape prints and her seven samples. This was when she was at her best, zeroing in on the critical minutiae points, like the trail of ridges near the tip of the forefinger where she’d found dissimilarities. That eliminated the first two candidates right off.
For the next set she enlarged the sample to the point where she could count the number of ridges on the thumb. Definite differences emerged.
That eliminated all of the others but one.
Mae sat up, narrowing her eyes as she compared her submission from the duct tape with the computer’s remaining sample. She concentrated on cluster details, spots, hooks, bifurcations and tented arches.
All the minutiae points matched.
The branching of the ridges matched.
Her breathing quickened as she began counting up the clear points of comparison where the two samples aligned. Some courts required ten to fifteen clear point matches. She had twenty-three and was still counting, knowing that one divergent point would instantly eliminate a print. By the time she’d compared the left slanting patterns from the thumb, she had twenty-eight clear points of comparison and was thinking ahead to what it would be like when she was testifying in court.
These prints are consistent with those collected at the crime scene.
She confirmed the identification number of her new subject and submitted a query to several databanks, including the FBI’s National Crime Information Center.
Who are you?
While waiting, forever-thorough Mae submitted the elimination prints—those that belonged to Dan, Lori and Billy Fulton—to the New York State and FBI databases, as well.
It was a routine check.
After a few more minutes she got a response to her query for her unidentified mystery print lifted from the duct tape.
The print was out of California.
The query had been run through an array of California’s systems, the California Law Enforcement Telecommunication System, California’s DMV, the Department of Corrections, including the Parole Law Enforcement Automated Data System, and the Automated Criminal History System, which could verify parolee history, offender identification, arrest records, convictions, holds and commitments for all California law enforcement agencies, even create All Points Bulletins and drop warrants.
The single hit identified the prints from the duct tape. The face of a white male appeared on her monitor, and Mae read the accompanying information, then hurriedly went to the subject’s central file summary to search for offenses.
It was blank.
His prints were on record because he’d once been charged for a misdemeanor drunk driving offense, but the charge had been dropped because the blood test results were lost.
Mae’s supervisor had cleared her to call the primary detective immediately once she had a hit, so she reached for her telephone. The line was answered on the second ring.
“Tilden.”
“Detective Marv Tilden?”
“That’s me.”
“Mae Clarke with the latent print section. We got a match on a print from the duct tape in your case. Ready to copy?”
“Go.”
“Jerricko Titus Blaine. I’ll send you the spelling.”
“Got it.”
“Age, twenty-three. Last known address, Dallas, Texas.”
“His sheet?”
“He’s clean. A misdemeanor drunk driving charge that was dropped. I’ll send you everything I’ve got, DOB, height, weight, et cetera.”
“Thanks, Mae.”
After sending Jerricko Blaine’s file to Tilden, Mae finished her water, then let out a long breath.
Now we’ve got a lead, something to work with.
She was preparing to return to her other cases when her computer pinged.
Another hit?
She wondered if Jerricko Blaine popped up in another jurisdiction, but instead it was a new hit—one from Lori Fulton’s prints.
Mae’s brow creased when she read the notice.
She reached for her phone to call Detective Tilden again.
26
New York Thruway
Dan’s grip tightened on the wheel.
“I need gas,” he said.
“No, you don’t,” Vic said. “You started with a full tank.”
“I’m telling you, I need gas!” Dan stared at the gauge, so Vic could see through the camera that the needle had dropped into the red zone. “Look!”
No response from Vic.
Dan had just left New Jersey. He was heading northbound on the New York Thruway, and was somewhere between Suffern and Sloatsburg, an hour out of New York City’s frenzy. Here, the metropolis had conceded to rivers, rock formations and undulating oceans of trees. The highway wound through the rolling hills, further isolating him and deepening his fear that he’d never see Lori and Billy again.
Are they alive?
He felt dwarfed by the vastness of the region, the Catskills rising around him.
Where’re they sending me? What’re they going to do?
His heart pounded against the sweaty confines of the bomb vest, and all he had to pass the time were his own terrified thoughts. While he couldn’t make any sense of who these guys were or why they’d chosen him. Could it be about someone his branch had dealings with? Maybe tied to an insurance cheat, someone Lori dealt with? One thing he did know was that Vic and his gang were planning something beyond the robbery.
Why would they make me drive across New Jersey and back into New York with the money? Why not just take it and let us go?
Dan dragged the back of his trembling hand over his mouth.
It’s as if they know I don’t have the guts to fight back. That I’m a coward. These people are going to kill us all, and I’m just going to let it happen. God help me.
His eyes strayed to the bag on the passenger floor, bulging with the cash.
At some point they were going to take the money from him. That’s when Dan would have to make a decision—to give up or to fight for his family’s life.
He studied the traffic in his side and rearview mirrors, eyeing an SUV, a delivery truck and two late-model sedans that trailed behind him.
Is Vic in one of them?
He didn’t know their vehicle or how close they were. He didn’t even know if they were keeping Lori and Billy with them.
“I want to talk to my family,” he said.
“Shut up and keep driving,” Vic said.
“I need to know they’re alive, or... I’ll go to police, I swear! If they’re already dead I’ve got nothing to lose.”
A long silence passed. Then he heard a commotion in his ear and his heart swelled.
“Dad?”
The connection was filled with static as if patched from a radio to a cell phone.
&
nbsp; “Billy! Son, are you hurt?”
“Dad, you gotta just do what they say!”
Dan’s head swiveled to look at the traffic around him, desperate to catch some glimpse of his son in a nearby car.
“Billy, where are you?”
Another bleat of confusion, then over the scratchy air he heard his wife’s voice.
“Dan, just listen to them. Do what they say!”
A disturbance filled his ear. Then nothing.
“Lori? Lori!” Blinking quickly, Dan took a deep breath and adjusted his hold on the wheel and himself.
“They’re alive, Dan,” Vic said calmly. “Now just keep doing what we tell you to do and you’ll see them soon. The next exit comes up in two miles. Take it. Go east to the gas station called Weldon’s.”
* * *
A quarter mile from the exit, down a forlorn rural road that cut through fields with horses and cows on one side and a few rusting cars on the other, Dan came to Weldon’s Gas and Grocery.
Four pumps stood out front of the building’s weathered wooden walls. A faded metal awning stretched over the Coke and ice machines. Tires were neatly stacked next to a pyramid of motor oil. A neon sign over the door said Open, while one above the pumps said Self-Serv.
Two vehicles were parked at the edge of the paved lot. A pickup with a dented fender and a van with a small banner reading: Dereck’s Electric. Several cars and trucks whizzed by the station. Dan scrutinized them. Before getting out he was stopped by Vic’s orders.
“Pay with cash,” he said. “I saw a ball cap in the car—put it on, play it smart and everything will go smoothly.”
The Stars and Stripes flapped as Dan fueled the Ford’s tank.
He went inside to pay, walking up to a man with a full white beard who stood behind the counter.
