The Face of Fear: A Powers and Johnson Novel

by Torbert, R. J. ;

  As he smiled at the story, Paul received a text from Bud. It said, “Did you kiss her yet?”

  Paul was quick with his typed reply: “No, leave me alone.”

  Before he could put the phone in his pocket, he got an answer: “I’m going to come out and check your pulse in a minute.” Paul wanted to shut the phone off, but he thought better of it.

  “Come on,” he said, “I’ll start walking you home.” Rachelle seemed disappointed and almost suggested going to his place, but she resisted. The conversation during the seven-minute walk consisted of Rachelle’s article to come out after this case was over, but she explained that starting the next day, cryptic messages with a puzzle would appear in both the Now paper and the Long Island edition of Newsday.

  Paul was concerned about it, but Rachelle assured him nothing would be given away. It was simply a tease to keep readers on the edge and hungry for the story that was about to be published. As they reached the doorstep to say goodbye, Rachelle faced Paul and decided to stop the tension between them.

  “I would ask you to come in and stay, but as you know, I have a bodyguard now.”

  “I know,” he said, “but I want to kiss you before handing you over.”

  “What are you waiting for?” she replied.

  As Paul started to kiss her, the door opened and Sherry said, “Did you have a good time?”

  Paul looked at Sherry with a look of disappointment. Rachelle laughed as she invited Paul in.

  As they went in, Mason was in a parked car four cars down on Prospect on the phone with John Winters to tell them they were in the house. Both were now using disposable prepaid phones. From his angle, he did not see Sherry answer the door. Madison’s car was gone, and now all he needed was for Paul to leave. “Come on,” he said out loud, “no sex tonight, boys and girls.”

  Inside, Paul greeted Sherry and officially handed Rachelle’s safety over to her. With an awkward goodbye to Rachelle, Paul waved goodbye to Sherry and left to walk down the hill to his apartment. Mason looked at his watch; it was 12:20 am. He decided he would wait 30 minutes before going in for Rachelle. At 1:00 am, the lights went off in the house, so Mason waited another 10 minutes before he left the car to approach the home.

  He walked around the home checking out the windows, the sliding door in the back, and walked back around the front to check out the lock on the front door. There was also a door facing High Street on the side of the house. It was so quiet you could hear a car that drove by at the bottom of the hill on Main Street. Mason went back to the side of the house facing High Street and found a window half-open next to the door to let the air in through the screen, but he felt it would make too much noise trying to get in. Mason went to the back a second time and attempted to open the sliding door. He gently pushed the door back, and it barely moved. He pulled back harder the second time, and the door opened. He was lucky; he thought he would have to go through a window.

  He entered the back of the den and, to his surprise, heard Rachelle in the bathroom. He waited at the corner of the den and the kitchen, waiting for her to come out of the bathroom into the hallway. He pulled out his knife and waited. As he stood there, he noticed the blankets and sheets on the pulled-out sofa. He had a look of puzzlement on his face as he heard the bathroom door open. It was Sherry. She had waited until Rachelle went to bed before washing up for the night. It was the only time she didn’t have her gun, and she was about to pay the price.

  She went past Mason, heard him, and turned around, but it was too late. He cut through her and watched her go down. He looked at her and enjoyed the started look on her face as she was about to die. As he watched her in the dim light, he realized she was black. He turned on the light and knew he had just killed the wrong person.

  He headed down to the bedroom and opened the door that was closed. He approached the bed as Rachelle opened her eyes to see a figure with a knife walking toward her. As Mason thrust his arm up for power and came down, Rachelle rolled to the floor with the covers. Mason tried to pull the covers from her, but Rachelle was screaming while holding on to the throw blanket for dear life. Her screams were piercing as Mason pulled with all his might, but Rachelle was so tangled in the sheets and blanket, he began to blindly stab her. He stopped and again tried to pull off the sheets. It was his sick need to see Rachelle’s face as he stabbed her that caused the delay from killing her with alacrity. He managed to get the sheets away from her and then heard shots being fired in the house. It startled him enough to stop his rampage at Rachelle to go back to the hallway to see Sherry lying on the floor with her weapon in her hand.

  Officer Sherry Walker had crawled to her pillow, got her cell phone, dialed 911, and began firing her gun in hopes it wasn’t too late to save Rachelle. “Don’t move,” she said to Mason.

  He moved quickly between the rooms, closer to her, and Sherry fired, just missing him. He came closer and could hear the click that she was out of bullets. He ran up to her and kicked her so hard in the face the gun flew out of her hand and flew to the other side of the room. The gunfire had been so loud he felt he had run out of time as he ran for the front door. Rachelle, who was in the corner shaking and terrified, managed to get herself to the window to look and saw a figure dressed in black tight clothes with a white mask on grab Mason by his collar, throw him down, and lean into his face, pause, and then stabbed him multiple times. Rachelle fell back into the corner of her room screaming, with the throw blanket on her. Bud was still at Danford’s with four other officers, including Lynagh and Healey, talking stories, when he got the text, “Shots fired, Prospect Street.”

  Bud jumped up, telling his fellow officers, and they followed behind him. He ran down the stairs and out the door, crossed East Broadway, crossed the back parking lot behind Z Pita, and raced up the hill to Prospect Street he called Paul who was already running down the stairs. Bud arrived with four other officers to find two police cruisers, which had arrived three minutes earlier.

  As Bud went into the house, two officers were trying to get the blood under control with Sherry until the ambulance came. “Rachelle! Rachelle!” he yelled.

  “She’s back here,” an officer yelled.

  Bud ran to the room, and the young officer already there told Bud, “She won’t let anyone touch her.”

  Bud went toward her, and she covered herself up more. She was shaking so hard he wanted to hold her but didn’t want to take any chances. Officers Lynagh and Healey started looking around the outside of the house for clues other than the body of Mason Winters lying on the front lawn. A second later, Paul ran into the room and moved toward her. She pushed herself back harder to the corner and squeezed the throw blanket so hard her fingers and arms were becoming cramped.

  “Rachelle,” Paul said. “Rachelle, let me make sure you are OK, please.”

  “Paul,” Bud said.

  Ignoring Bud, Paul said again, “Rachelle.” As he moved his hand gently toward her, she spoke her first words since the attack.

  “Where were you? Why did it take you so long to be here?”

  “Rachelle,” Paul answered, “I was here within minutes, please.” He moved closer.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said. She started to cry again, asking for her sister.

  The ambulance arrived quickly for Officer Walker. With Mather Hospital only being a two-minute drive from Rachelle’s house, Sherry was in surgery within 18 minutes of the attack. Madison was driving home when she got the call from Paul to get home. She was there within 10 minutes. The second ambulance was there, but no one could get near Rachelle. Madison ran to the room and ran to Rachelle, who did not resist her.

  “Shh! Shh!” Madison said gently as she held her head. “I’m here now, Shh! It’s OK, sister is here.” Within minutes, Madison had Rachelle calm enough to go in the ambulance to be medically checked out.

  “Don’t leave me!” she said to her sister.

  “I’m here, honey
,” Madison said. “I’m here.”

  “Rachelle,” Paul said.

  “No,” Rachelle replied. “No.”

  Paul tried to go with them to the ambulance, but Madison gave him a stop signal with her hand. Paul was confused by all of this, but Bud went up to him.

  “Come on, let’s take a look around,” he said.

  As they searched the house, the crime unit was marking the floors and the bullet holes, which, for the most part, were in the ceiling except for the two in the hallway. There was blood, most likely Sherry’s, smeared on the floor and carpet. As they were checking the back sliding door, Detective Lieutenant Cronin had arrived and was on the front corner lawn looking at the body of Mason Winters. With multiple stab wounds, it was evident he was taken by surprise.

  As Cronin entered the house, everyone could hear him say in a low voice, “Son of a bitch.” He looked at Bud and Paul and asked, “Do we know what happened yet?”

  Bud answered him, “Paul dropped Rachelle off at 12:20 am. It’s pretty clear that Winters entered the house about 1:15 am. Officer Walker dialed 911 from her cell phone at 1:21 am, and shots were fired at approximately 1:22 am. We received texts at 1:24 am. I arrived on the scene at 1:28 am, Paul at 1:30 am. Uniform officers were on the scene about a minute before me and attending to Sherry and trying to attend to Rachelle. However, no one could touch her ’til her sister arrived from her date at 1:35 am.”

  Cronin then asked, “Was it a coincidence the sister got home at 1:35 am?”

  “No, sir,” Bud replied. “Paul called her as he was running up to the house. She was already driving home. She just stepped on the gas when she got the message.”

  “And the body outside?”

  Bud again replied, “He was the intruder, most likely. We are not sure yet because Sherry was unconscious with a knife wound when officers got here and put her in the ambulance.”

  Cronin looked outside at the body of Winters and noticed Bud was the only one doing the talking. He said, “So everyone is getting killed who was involved in this mess. You two get to the hospital, try to get statements from Sherry Walker if she makes it out of surgery, and now Rachelle is most likely the only one that can tell us what happened to our friend on the lawn.” As they left the house, Cronin followed them.

  “Paul!” he yelled. “Detective Powers, I would suggest you get your head out of your ass.” Paul acknowledged him and got in the car with Bud as they drove over to Mather.

  Cronin stayed at the house to look around a bit, both inside and outside the home. He had Lynagh and Healey check the vehicles to identify Mason Winters’ car to have it brought in for evidence. “Well, well, well,” he said as he stood on the front porch. “Mr. Phil Smith, you are doing such a good job of eliminating everyone.”

  He called Bud’s cell phone and told Bud, who had just arrived at the hospital, “Bud, try to get someone to talk tonight. I want to know if the mask that was at the hospital and the killing of Starfield was here tonight.”

  As Cronin turned around to go back in the house, he said to himself, “Mr. Phil, why are you not killing Deborah, why are you not killing Rachelle? Who are you, Mr. Phil? Who are you this time, Ghost Face? Hmm, I will find out, I promise.”

  As he entered the house, he looked at the den where Sherry was to sleep. He went into every room of the house hoping to find one detail that would help with the case. He found nothing until he went into Rachelle’s office, where he found pages of written notes on the back of desk calendar pages. There were hundreds of pages with handwritten notes on them. It looked to him like she was writing a book. He flipped through the pages, going over her notes. Some of the desk calendars had the format of a story, and others were of outlines—character summary, chapter summary with a brief outline for each chapter. Rachelle was writing a book called Vanished—The Port Jefferson Murders. He found her cryptic messages that were going to be in Newsday for the next seven days.

  On her desk, stuck against the back shelf, between the crack of the shelving, were photos. There were Rachelle with Madison, younger photos of her with her parents, a photo of Paul at the restaurant standing alongside Rachelle and Joey Z. He opened the drawers to her desk and found more photos. They consisted of the Cross Island Ferry, outside and inside. There were signs that photos were not allowed, but somehow she got them. Based on the events that happened, the detective lieutenant really wasn’t surprised she had gotten away with it.

  In the bottom drawer were papers, what seemed liked notes. It looked as though Rachelle saved every note that was given to her. Many of them were from Paul, written on the back of business cards and napkins, and it was clear there was an emotional attachment for Paul and apparently for Rachelle, if she was saving everything he wrote to her. There was nothing in the notes that was inappropriate for a police officer, but it was clear there was some kind of relationship. It was more clear to Cronin as to why Paul seemed so out of it, and he began to question himself having the detective stay on the case.

  He put his attention on the other side of desk drawers. They were filled with the articles she had written for the Port Jefferson Now newspaper. Award certificates, correspondence, and columns on letters written to the paper from the local community and fans. Cronin began to walk away from the desk when, hiding in plain sight, was new mail lying on her bureau. He picked up the short stack of mail, which he thought was interesting because it was all addressed to Z Pita or the paper’s address. He sorted through Cablevision bills, Verizon cell phone, bank statements, and stopped at the envelope that had the return address of Phil Smith. He had used the address from his home, but since the house had been under 24-hour surveillance, the return address was just a formality. It had not been opened, but he didn’t wait or care.

  With the amount of bloodshed and the possibility of another cop being killed he opened the letter and read, “Dear Ms. Rachelle Robinson, I hope this letter finds you alive. I say this because I really don’t know how much longer you can survive this. You put yourself into something that is way over your pretty little head. Even so, I can say the same thing for me. The important thing is that I want you to know that the person going around killing my former partners is not me. True, by wearing a mask it would leave room for doubt. However, that is the point. Someone is wearing the mask and killing because they want to frame me for this. Someone wants a freebie. I expect you to print this in your next article if you are alive. If you don’t, I will make sure you won’t be alive for the following week. If I am going to be framed and if it appears there is no way in proving it, then I have nothing to lose, right, Ms. Robinson? Our only intent was for the $5 million to return Debbie Lance. If I have to, I will come for you, and I won’t be wearing the mask. I will want you to know it’s me. With anticipation of your cooperation. Phillippe Smith. P.S. Have a nice day.

  2:00 AM Wednesday Morning, June 22

  Cronin picked his cell phone from his pocket, forgetting it was 2:30 am, and called FBI Special Agent O’Connor. He said, “Jack, meet me at 9:30 am if you can at Port Jefferson Now editorial offices. It’s in regard to the case. Oh, sorry, it’s 2:30 am. Having another one of my cops likely murdered will do that to you.” O’Connor volunteered to meet Cronin at the hospital, but the detective lieutenant declined. He said, “Get some sleep. See you in the morning.”

  He walked back out to the kitchen, where there was an answering machine. He pushed the button and played back all the messages. Nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe one. It was Bud singing to Sherry, checking up on her at 11:30 pm. It seemed ordinary for Bud, though. As Detective Lieutenant Cronin left the house, he instructed two uniformed officers not to leave the house until they were relieved. There would be uniformed officers assigned at the house until the case was finished or, as he thought when he walked away, till no one was left alive. A morbid thought, but he was beginning to think it was a realistic possibility.

  He got in his car and drove the short distance to
Mather Hospital. He was sure that Suffolk County executive Marshall Collins would be there for another cop fallen in the line of duty. Even the chief of police might be there or on the way. Cronin walked in to the hospital and told some of the officers to make sure the press was controlled outside as word of the events spread. He was met in the hallway by Agent Sherman, who decided to stay up when he heard about the shooting.

  “It’s pretty clear the murders and the kidnapping are all tied together,” Cronin said as he greeted the FBI agent.

  “What about John Winters?” Sherman asked.

  “What about him?” Cronin replied. “If we don’t find him soon, he will probably show up dead. Someone wearing the mask doesn’t want a trial; they want this to be over.”

  Sherman responded, “The letter doesn’t mean Smith is not the killer. This could be his way of trying to frame others.”

  “True,” Cronin replied, “but if he had killed Deborah Lance and Rachelle Robinson while he was killing his former partners, he wouldn’t have a hell of a lot of witnesses to worry about.”

  Sherman continued the debate, saying, “Debbie Lance and Robinson never saw him anyway.”

  Cronin came back at Sherman again. “He has done everything to show us he is a lowlife; he hasn’t done anything to show us he’s a killer except this letter on his intentions. It raises the question, doesn’t it? Which is what he wants anyway. We have to find John Winters before we find him in the gutter. One more thing,” he said to Sherman. “No one, and I mean no one, other than you is to know about this letter, understood?”

  Sherman paused then replied, “Understood.”

  Cronin found Bud and Paul outside of the surgery room and inquired as to her chances.

  “We don’t know anything yet,” Bud replied.

  Cronin looked over at Paul and asked, “Are you going to talk tonight?” His voice was heard throughout the wing.