88 Killer

by Oliver Stark

  ‘We will. Let’s just try to narrow it down to some dates.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘A ten-year slot. He’s in his thirties. He might have started this as a teenager. So, let’s say he’s thirty-five. Twenty years ago he’s fifteen. About the right age, give or take a couple of years. We can go five years either side of thirty-five. So let’s start in 1990. You go five years forward, I’ll go five years back.’

  ‘I don’t understand your logic, Denise, but it’s a plan.’

  Chapter One Hundred and Six

  Lock-Up, Bedford Stuyvesant

  March 15, 7.35 a.m.

  Abby pulled herself up slowly and stared out. ‘We can’t sit here like victims. We’ve got to do something.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve got to help, Lucy,’ said Abby, straining with each word. ‘You know him. What makes him tick?’

  ‘He doesn’t like women.’

  ‘Or Jews. He wants me to reject my Jewishness. Why should that matter to him?’

  Lucy pushed herself against the brick wall. ‘He’s Jewish, Abby.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He can’t be. That’s . . . Come on, Lucy, help me. I need something. I feel so weak. Please.’

  ‘He’s a cop. Did you know that?’

  ‘Then he’ll kill us.’ Abby felt her legs aching and she stumbled against the wall and fell to the ground. Since getting out of her tiny cell, she wanted to walk, to feel her limbs again, but she couldn’t. She didn’t have the strength. She looked up at the shower heads.

  ‘He’s made a gas chamber. He’s Jewish? I can’t understand it.’

  ‘He was adopted. His mother was Jewish, I think, and he was adopted by a Christian family. I think his mother was a prostitute, but I don’t know. I don’t know if he knows. He wanted to find her as a kid, as he was growing up, as he was feeling different, but he couldn’t trace her. He was adopted when he was five. He loved her, you know. Guess she didn’t love him back.’

  ‘Did they mistreat him?’

  ‘I guess they did. Not like you’d call social services,’ said Lucy. ‘They just weren’t kind to him.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What about his father and the shoes in the cellar?’

  ‘He didn’t have a cellar. I don’t think it’s his story.’

  ‘Then what’s his problem?’

  ‘He’s sensitive, I don’t think he was ever loved. I don’t think he could belong. Other kids knew he was Jewish – he was bullied and all that – but he wouldn’t talk about it. He won’t talk about anything that makes him feel weak.’

  ‘He hurt you?’ said Abby.

  ‘To some men, Abby, a woman constantly makes them feel weak. He needed me and hated it. He hated my existence. Look – I’m not a psychiatrist.’

  ‘He joined the cops because he wanted to exert power,’ said Abby.

  ‘Probably,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Is there anything that you can remember? Anything that might help us?’

  Lucy stared blankly ahead.

  Abby waited but nothing came. She walked around the walls, pushing at every brick, looking for a weak point. ‘I’m not going to die like this, Lucy. You got to fucking think.’ She looked at Lucy, who was crying. Abby stood over her. ‘Quit it!’ she rasped. ‘Just fucking quit it.’

  Lucy looked up, surprised and upset.

  ‘I want you to think, Lucy. We need something to get this bastard to think twice, or to pull back. What does he want, Lucy? What does he really want?’

  Lucy closed her eyes. ‘He always said he wanted to find his mom. He imagined that she’d be proud of him. A cop. A detective. Big and strong.’

  ‘Well, she’s not going to be proud of this fucking get-up, is she? Nazi crap. He’s like a child, playing games. I don’t know if it’s real. You look at his eyes and they’re empty.’

  ‘I’ll try to think of something,’ said Lucy.

  Abby paused. She stared out at the Nazi flag. He had become the worst thing he could become. ‘You don’t need to think of something,’ she said. ‘I think you already did.’

  Chapter One Hundred and Seven

  Brooklyn

  March 15, 9.05 a.m.

  Harper stood outside the home of Martin Heming and stared at the street. What had they missed? He had nothing from the research on the memorabilia. He walked down the rundown street, looking for a clue as to why these people formed their sick little hate groups. As he reached the subway, he got a call from the Hate Crime Unit.

  ‘It’s Jack here. How are you, Harper?’

  ‘I’m out on a limb, Jack. I guess you heard about the operation.’

  ‘I’m down with Heming’s body now. I heard all right. We’re hoping there’s something on him.’

  ‘Been there already, I got nothing. Shit, Jack, I went out without authorization last night.’

  ‘You got to do what you got to do.’

  ‘That’s okay if it works,’ said Harper. ‘But if it doesn’t?’

  ‘You got Heming, that’s got to weaken the killer’s position.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘No right-hand man to help him out.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see the other guy? See anything at all?’

  ‘No,’ said Harper. ‘I got nothing.’

  Carney’s voice lowered slightly. ‘Listen, Harper, don’t get all fucked up. You tried to find something on Heming. After you left, they did get something. He had a cell phone without a SIM card, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘We found the SIM card.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘In his right sock.’

  ‘Shit, does it tell you anything?’

  ‘I think we might have something here, yes.’

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Heming is the key to finding the killer,’ said Carney.

  ‘And Lucy and Abby,’ said Harper.

  ‘Well, Heming must’ve been with the killer, with him in his lair, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘With the SIM we can see who he called. We can even get a location on the phone’s position. We can locate where he was when he made the calls.’

  ‘That’s fucking great, Jack. What have you got?’

  ‘We’ve got several locations, but the most promising is a set of garages. I’m heading over now to do a drive-by and a little surveillance. You in?’

  ‘We should get Blue Team and SWAT.’

  ‘You are Blue Team, Harper. We’ve got the Hate Crime Unit, so we’re not alone. But we can’t be sure he was with the killer, so let’s take a look at this before we call in the cavalry. You don’t want another botch-up, do you? And I certainly don’t.’

  ‘What’s the address?’

  Carney gave him the street name. ‘There is no number for the garages. It’s just a row of dilapidated real estate. There’s a garage on the corner, we’re going to meet up there and see how the land lies.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ said Harper.

  Chapter One Hundred and Eight

  The Brooklyn Library

  March 15, 9.09 a.m.

  Denise and Aaron Goldenberg sat side by side at two large oak tables. Each of them had the handwritten ledgers for a five-year period. They were flicking through at a pace, their fingers sliding down the pages. All they needed to find was the name of someone who had borrowed the book on Josef Sturbe and this could lead them to Abby, to saving Abby. It wouldn’t be conclusive, but it might give the investigation something.

  Denise saw the name Josef Sturbe on the page. She felt herself tingle. ‘I’ve got one here,’ she called out.

  ‘Who is it?’ said Aaron Goldenberg.

  ‘Her name’s Hannah Sternberg.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘I need to check her reading card.’ Denise crossed to the large files and searched for Hannah Sternberg. She took it out. ‘She’s about fifty-two now.’

  ‘N
ot our killer.’

  ‘Maybe not, but she’s interested in the Nazis – look at this record.’

  Aaron pulled Hannah Sternberg’s reading record. There were several books on Nazis and the ghettos and the Holocaust.

  ‘She might have been trying to find something,’ said Aaron. His face contorted in pain. ‘But it’s not her, is it? We’re not going to find my Abby. Never, never, never.’

  ‘Don’t give up now,’ said Denise.

  ‘I can’t stand it. I miss her like . . . You could never understand.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t,’ said Denise. ‘But this is all we’ve got, so let’s keep searching.’

  Aaron calmed himself. ‘Yes, for Abby. Because we must always have hope.’ He clenched each fist slowly and continued to search.

  Denise’s phone rang a few minutes later. It was Tom Harper. ‘How are things in the archives?’

  ‘It’s okay, we’re getting through quite fast. Not many people read this book. One so far, a fifty-two-year-old woman.’

  ‘Keep going,’ said Harper. ‘I’ve got a lead. Set of garages on 118th in Bed-Stuy that we think Heming used when he was in hiding. It just might be the place.’

  ‘Be safe,’ said Denise. ‘You want help?’

  ‘I don’t want Aaron around if his daughter’s there. Keep in touch.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Denise.

  ‘Call me if you need me.’

  ‘I will,’ said Denise.

  They continued to search. Aaron raised his hand in the air fifteen minutes later. ‘I found another name. A man called Albert Moile.’

  ‘Go check his file,’ said Denise.

  Aaron looked through and found the library record card for Albert Moile. He looked across. ‘If he’s still alive, he’s ninety-five,’ said Aaron.

  A moment later Denise’s finger ran down the page and stopped. She saw the name Josef Sturbe again and moved her finger across the ledger to the borrower’s name. She looked down at it and felt her body chill. ‘I’ve got a name,’ she said, with a tremble in her voice. ‘It’s the killer. I know who it is.’

  Chapter One Hundred and Nine

  Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

  March 15, 9.45 a.m.

  Harper arrived at the garage on the corner and Jack Carney was already there, waiting.

  ‘We’ve got a vague location point for the lock-up along this row,’ said Carney. ‘Let’s go.’

  Harper and Jack Carney ran up the street searching for some sign as to where the killer was. They did two sweeps of the road but couldn’t see anything.

  ‘Where the hell are these garages?’ said Harper.

  ‘They must be somewhere around here,’ said Carney.

  Then Harper spotted a broken wire fence and walked over. He looked at the edge. ‘Jack, check this. The wire’s been bent recently. The scratches on the wall are recent too.’

  Harper pushed through the fence, quickly followed by Carney. They walked across the wasteland, their eyes scanning every building, before fastening on an old abandoned lock-up. Then Harper stopped. ‘Listen.’

  Carney listened. ‘Banging.’

  ‘And voices,’ said Harper. They moved quickly towards the sound. Harper saw the garage. He looked at the bolts. ‘New bolts in a derelict area.’

  ‘This must be it,’ said Carney.

  The banging became more intense and frightened. They could hear two women crying out for help and looked at each other. Carney stood by the door as Harper moved all around the building. He reappeared at the other side and shook his head.

  ‘No windows.’

  They looked at the door. ‘You kick it in,’ said Carney quietly. ‘Let’s hope to God that they’re okay,’ said Harper. He motioned for Carney to move to the side, raised his gun and indicated the handle. Carney put his hand on it.

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ said Harper.

  Carney depressed the handle and Harper pulled the trigger. The padlock split open and Carney pushed open the door. ‘NYPD. Put your hands in the air.’ Harper raised his gun and moved in. ‘What is that smell?’ he whispered.

  ‘Cyanide,’ said Jack Carney.

  Harper scanned the room with his gun. He saw the two women directly ahead in a strange prison. He saw the pipes running across the length of the room and to the roof of the cell. Just like the gas van.

  Inside the cell, the two women were screaming and shaking. They were pointing towards the back of the garage. Harper swiveled round and suddenly felt something hard against his skull.

  Jack Carney’s gun was pressed tight to his head. ‘Drop your gun, Harper, or I kill you right now.’

  Chapter One Hundred and Ten

  Lock-Up, Bedford-Stuyvesant

  March 15, 9.58 a.m.

  Harper stared into Jack Carney’s eyes. A hundred tiny inconsistencies and questions suddenly fell into place. He felt sickness in the pit of his stomach. Disgust so sudden and violent that he couldn’t speak.

  ‘The gun, Harper, or I kill you.’ Carney eased the trigger back.

  Harper heard the click of the breech and he dropped his gun to the ground. His hands formed into large, heavy fists, and hatred and anger burned in his eyes.

  ‘Tom Harper, I thought you were better than this,’ said Carney.

  Harper held his gaze and looked directly into the eyes of the ruthless killer.

  ‘It’s hard to believe,’ said Carney. ‘Move over to the cell.’

  Harper edged backwards. ‘You’re dead, you fucking animal,’ he shouted. ‘You know that? There’s no fucking way out. You’re trapped, Carney, you sick fuck.’

  ‘Anger and hatred, Harper. You feeling it?’ Carney smiled. ‘This is the killer’s Luger. You were the only one who could work this out,’ he said. ‘I knew you were close but I’m not ready to give in.’

  ‘They all know,’ said Harper. ‘It’s over. Let these two go.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Carney. ‘Now they’re going to have a big problem on their hands. You went off on your own last night. The story is going to go like this – the killer lured you here and you heroically tried to save the girls. But oh, how close you must’ve come.’

  Carney moved across to the canister of Zyklon B. ‘I add these pellets in here, they react with the air and Lucy and Abby will die. You will try to open the door and the killer will shoot you.’

  ‘It’s a good plan, but people know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Everyone.’

  ‘You sure about that, Harper? Don’t bluff the master.’ Carney chuckled.

  ‘You got to give yourself up,’ shouted Harper. ‘You need help.’

  ‘I’ve got a mission, Harper. A mission.’

  ‘Open the cell,’ Harper commanded, but Carney moved across to the cyanide.

  ‘Lucy,’ called Harper into the cell. ‘Is there any way out of here?’

  She shook her head.

  Harper turned and looked at the drained and emaciated figure of Abby in the cell behind him. He smashed his fist against the Plexiglass but it was too thick. It wouldn’t break. He turned and stared at Carney. ‘You can’t do this, you’ve got to stop. You’re a cop.’

  Carney took the can across to the small tub. ‘This is the Zyklon B. Everything had to be authentic.’ He smiled. ‘It causes a slow and painful death.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘The heart has reasons that reason knows not of,’ said Carney. He turned to Harper and moved close to the Plexiglass. ‘And because I hate them. All of them. Jews, her, you, everyone.’ He opened the canister, pulled back the lid of the plastic bucket.

  ‘How long will it take them to die?’

  ‘Ten minutes, a little more,’ said Carney.

  They heard the sound of the first pellets hitting the base of the bucket. Harper moved across to the door and barged at it with his full weight. He tried again.

  ‘You won’t rescue them,’ said Carney. ‘That’s not the story I’ve planned.’

  Abby Goldenbe
rg pulled herself to her feet with her last reserves of strength and moved up to the front of the cell. ‘I know what you are!’ she called out.

  ‘Do you?’ shouted Carney. ‘Well, I’m Josef Sturbe and you’re dead.’

  ‘Your mother was in touch with Lucy. Did you know that? You think you know everything. You couldn’t find her yourself, but Lucy found her. Lucy told her about the beatings, about the man you’d become. She was disgusted.’

  Carney stopped and stared across to the cell. He replaced the lid on the pellets. ‘Fuck you, you’re lying. She’s dead. Fucking dead.’

  Lucy was crouched in a corner. ‘She’s not dead, Jack. She’s alive. I met her.’

  Jack Carney moved across to the cell. ‘Have you been telling secrets? Did you find my mother?’

  Abby’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘She’s the only one who knows where your mother lives. You kill her and you’ll never find her.’

  Abby was a smart kid, Harper thought. She was buying time. He looked around. What could he do? The gas ran through hastily welded scaffolding pipes, across and then above him.

  ‘Where is she?’ said Carney. ‘I want her dead. I want you all dead. Fuck her. It’s too late. It’s too fucking late.’

  ‘It’s not too late,’ said Abby, drawing breath slowly at each sentence. ‘She’s been living right here in Brooklyn all that time. Knew who you were. She’s been keeping clippings of you, your whole life.’

  ‘Is this true, Lucy? Speak or you die.’

  Lucy nodded.

  ‘Tell me where she is. She’ll be the next one to die.’ Then Carney looked at them and laughed. ‘You’re both lying. You’ll regret that.’

  Carney turned and headed back to the Zyklon B. Harper jumped and grabbed on to the scaffolding pole with both hands. It snapped under his weight. Carney turned and shot. It hit the Plexiglass. Harper swung hard and low. He didn’t want to miss. The pole hit Carney’s legs and he fell. Harper moved to him, but Carney was good. The Luger pointed directly at him. ‘Go on, make another move, Harper.’

  Harper stopped. ‘You’re not going to gas them, you fucking freak. You can shoot us all, but your sick little experiment isn’t going to work.’