The Screaming Room jd-2

by Thomas O`Callaghan

  The Lieutenant was a snazzy dresser, often clad in a well-tailored jacket by Hickey Freeman or Hart Schaffner amp; Marx, with a pair of slacks by Joseph Abboud, a tie by Richell, and shoes by either Johnston and Murphy or Kenneth Cole. Halston 14, his wife’s favorite fragrance for men, had become his favorite as well. His fondness for upscale cologne and fine English tailoring had earned him the moniker Dapper John.

  And with Dapper John before him now, Thomlinson said, “It’s time to get it on with the cuisine of Jamaica, Lieutenant. This here is roti. It’s goat meat cooked with potatoes in a sauce of turmeric, coriander, allspice, and saffron. It really hits the spot! Here, try some.” Thomlinson handed Driscoll a bowl and filled it.

  Driscoll took a taste of the meal, inhaling its aroma. His friend was right. It was delicious. He felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. When he turned, his eyes widened.

  “Mary!”

  “I’m sorry, John.”

  He embraced the woman. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

  “I decided this morning. This nonsense has got to stop. I’m your sister, for God’s sake!”

  “Ssshh. Ssshh,” Driscoll whispered. He hadn’t let go. He continued to hold her, stroking her hair. “Ssshh. Ssshh.”

  When Mary Driscoll-Humphreys pulled back, her gentle round face was slathered with tears. She tried to speak. Although her mouth opened, she couldn’t produce a sound.

  “Come. Let’s sit.”

  Driscoll escorted his sister to a corner, where a gentleman in a suit was seated. He immediately stood and extended his hand. “You must be Mary. Your brother and I have been friends since the academy. I’ve heard so much about you. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Driscoll placed a supportive hand on his sister’s back. “This is Leonard DeCovney, Mary. He kept me in line through training.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, too,” she replied. She had regained her voice and unfortunately continued to use it. “John, I need to go now. I’ll call you when school lets out.”

  The woman disappeared as silently as she had arrived, blowing her brother a kiss before the siblings lost sight of each other in the crowd.

  “How’s she doing?” DeCovney asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Driscoll.

  “She still taking…”

  Driscoll answered the incomplete question. “That’s what scares the hell out of me. I know she picks up her medication and that she refills it according to schedule because her pharmacist calls me. But does she take it? I honestly don’t know. Why don’t I know? Because, according to her therapist, she needs to be on her own as much as possible through what she describes as a phase. Nothing more. A phase. You wanna take a crack at what that means? I don’t.” Driscoll’s eyes narrowed. “I pray she knows what she’s doing.”

  “The therapist.”

  Driscoll nodded. “Mary changed the lock again. Added a couple more. I’m running up a tab at Ace Hardware having keys made. I should be the one on the medication.”

  “I don’t know about that. For a man who buried his wife today, you look like you’ve got a handle on things.”

  “I’ve had help. I think Colette’s been prepping me for Mary, who, inside her head, is finding it increasingly more difficult existing in the present. It tends to keep my feet firmly planted. It saddens me to think my sister will never feel a sense of prolonged attachment to anything.”

  “On that, my friend, I’d say you’re wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she has you.”

  “But between the two of us, I’m the only one who knows it. By the time she gets home, she won’t remember she was here.”

  “That may be so. But she knows how to find you. Which translates to-she has you.”

  Driscoll was deeply touched and somewhat relieved.

  “Come on, John. I’m buying.” Deputy Commissioner DeCovney led Driscoll over his bridge back to life and into a circle of friends.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “My door’s always open.”

  “I know.”

  When Driscoll rejoined Thomlinson, his anxiety was in check.

  Brooklyn’s borough commander, James Hanrahan, approached the two men with distraction in his eyes.

  “You gotta try this,” Hanrahan said, handing Driscoll a fork with a chunk of meat on it.

  “What is it?”

  “Jerk pork. It’s Jamaican.”

  Driscoll bit into the morsel.

  “Wow! That’s a three-alarm fire,” he sputtered, waving his hand in front of his mouth.

  “Give it a minute,” Hanrahan warned. “It’s got a helluva back draft.”

  “This is no brisket,” Driscoll managed, his mouth ablaze.

  A man in a dark suit walked up to the borough commander and handed Hanrahan a cell phone. “Chief, you’d better take this call,” he said.

  Hanrahan took the cell phone, his eyes narrowing as he listened to the caller. He then spoke directly and quietly into the phone. His communication complete, he turned to face Driscoll.

  “Looks like someone’s got it in for tourists.”

  “How so?” Driscoll asked.

  “Some kid spotted a dead Chinaman riding the Wonder Wheel in Coney Island while a second grader uncovered a second corpse at a dinosaur exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. The body at the museum was set up to look like dinosaur dung. Her ID says she was from Berlin. Crime Scene thinks they may be linked because the cause of death appears to be blunt force trauma for both and their bodies were posed. And get this. Both vics were scalped.”

  “Scalped? That’s a new one,” said Driscoll, still fighting the fire inside his mouth.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Who caught the murders?”

  “Elizabeth Delgado. Brooklyn South Homicide. And Frank Reynolds from Manhattan North.”

  “Frank I know. Never heard of Delgado. She new?”

  “Transfer from Robbery.”

  “A homicide rookie. Glad I’m not on this one.”

  “What’s that you’re drinking?” Hanrahan asked.

  “Rum,” Driscoll answered, confused by Hanrahan’s sudden interest in his beverage.

  “I’d have another one, if I were you,” said the borough commander.

  “One’ll do fine,” said Driscoll, detecting an uncomfortable look on Hanrahan’s face. “Is there something you want to tell me, Jim? Who was that on the phone?”

  “We’re not about to discuss police business at your wife’s wake, for Chrissake!”

  “Police business is all I have right now. My wife’s at peace and I’m not about to sit home and stare at the walls. I’m gonna need distraction. Big time! And work will be just the ticket.”

  “You sure?”

  “Very.”

  “You’ve been assigned to the tourist homicides.”

  “Says who?”

  “Mayor Reirdon. That was him on the phone.”

  Chapter 7

  Angus sat on the cold slab of slate that encircled the top of the well. They had done it. Finally done it. Yet, he didn’t feel satiated like he thought he would. Thoughts ran rampant inside his head. That was the norm. His eyes were distracted, though, lost to the efforts of the orb-weaving spider that was crawling surreptitiously across its web. A nocturnal feeder, the spider. Angus appreciated that, for he, too, despite all that had happened, preferred the night and its often undetected happenings.

  He was born at night. Or so he had been told. A harsh night, bitter cold and unwelcome, was how his father had described it. “As unwelcome as you,” he’d scoff. His cruelest derision coming when he was drunk, which was nightly.

  Angus’s eyes were still fixed on the spider, but the timbre of Father’s voice bellowed in the recesses of his mind, unleashing uninvited memories.

  “Angus! You little bastard. Get in here!”

  “With another can of beer” was left unsa
id, but I knew better than to rile the guy, and remembered, robotically, to stop at the fridge before entering the smoke-filled room where Father sat, eyes fixed on the black-and-white screen of the Emerson TV.

  “We’re not finished yet,” he reminded me with a sneer, causing me to tremble and often wet my pants. “And that sister of yours? I’ve got something real special in store for her!”

  Most nights the Budweiser worked to my advantage, acting as a soporific godsend. But only for the night. Another day would follow, giving way to another night. One more spell of darkness I’d need to live through, saddled with dread. And when the beer didn’t work its magic I’d be hauled into the godforsaken room behind the furnace, forced to strip, and climb atop a cold porcelain enamel-topped table.

  “Lay still, Angus. Don’t make me have to say it again.”

  Father would then reach for the rubbing alcohol and sanitize a portion of my skin. With the cold tabletop pressing hard against the side of my face, I eyed the row of shot glasses that held the assortment of inks. I cringed, feeling the touch of Father’s rough fingers as he applied the Vaseline. Next came the feel of the small stencil being placed on my body, accompanied by the whirring sound the electric machine made when it was turned on.

  It was then that I closed my eyes and forced my thoughts to carry me to that faraway place where I wouldn’t feel the sting of the needles perforating my flesh.

  Chapter 8

  Three days had passed since Driscoll appealed to his boss, Captain Eddie Barrows, that he be allowed to tie up some loose ends on a prior case. Something didn’t feel right. He couldn’t stay focused until he resolved it. Besides, the latest murders were being investigated by capable homicide detectives, and it was Driscoll’s feeling that they should stay there. It would give the rookie a chance to sharpen her teeth. So what if the victims were tourists? New York was full of them. His curiosity was piqued, though, by the scalping. What was that all about? He also wondered what the Mayor’s reaction would be to his resistance, but that thought would have to stay on hold. Right now, there were more pressing matters at hand. The Mayflower Moving Company had just completed packing all of Driscoll’s furnishings and personal belongings aboard their truck. It was time now to pay his last respects to the house that had served as his sanctuary for the past twelve years.

  He whistled the first few lines of “Time after Time,” turned his back on the moving truck, and climbed the three wooden steps to his porch. Sinatra’s rendition of Jule Stein’s love ballad had been his and Colette’s wedding song. Driscoll hummed or whistled the opening lines often.

  As he pushed open the front door to the Toliver’s Point bungalow, the sharpness of Betadine antiseptic and the sterile smell of bleached linen still hung in the air. What had once served as a makeshift intensive care unit for his comatose wife was now a barren room, reminding him of the hollowness of his own life. The hospital bed and the cluster of life support equipment were gone. It had been no small feat to convince an anxious hospital staff to agree to such an unorthodox arrangement as home care for a comatose patient. But that’s where Driscoll had wanted his wife. Home. Surrounded by her treasured paintings. And, after his acquisition of some pretty costly medical equipment, funded in part by Driscoll’s health insurance and supplemented by a sizable advance against his pension fund, Saint Matthew’s hospital had granted his wish.

  But now that chapter of his life had ended.

  Colette. It was she who had discovered Toliver’s Point. While she was a landscape painter at the New York Art Student’s League, a friend had invited her to spend a day at the beach. She found the Point’s natural setting in an urban environment enchanting. She returned often to sit at the water’s edge and paint. She fell in love with the locale to such a degree that five years later she put a down payment on her first piece of waterfront property: a summer bungalow in Toliver’s Point.

  The first night Sergeant John Driscoll was invited to the bayside community, he thought he had been transported to some distant island. After he and Colette married, the summer bungalow was renovated, winterized, and transformed into a comfortable residence they were proud to call home.

  Trying to keep feelings of abandonment in check, he cast one last glance at the walls of the bungalow, emptied now of their aquarelles and serigraphs, bolted shut the door, and headed for his parked cruiser, where he sprang the lock on the trunk and retrieved the for-sale sign, which he planted in the lawn. It was then he heard the sound of tires creeping on asphalt. Two shiny black Chryslers, bookending a Lincoln stretch limousine, pulled in at the curb. Driscoll watched as the limousine’s tinted window slid down.

  “If Mohammad doesn’t come to the mountain, well…then, the Mayor of New York must pay a visit to his top cop,” the Honorable William “Sully” Reirdon said as he stepped from his automobile.

  It annoyed the hell out of police brass, but the newly elected Reirdon prided himself on being a hands-on Mayor. Bypassing the police commissioner, borough commanders, and bureau chiefs was commonplace for the man. Hell, he once had a one on one with a beat cop because some alarmed Bronx resident complained of strangers in her neighborhood when she called his weekly Concerned Citizens radio forum. And here he was now, in Toliver’s Point.

  “You’re trespassing, Mr. Mayor. This is Democrat country.”

  “Well, will you look at that? You’ve got a million-dollar view of my city,” said the Mayor, casting his stare across the bay.

  “You could buy the place, Mr. Mayor. Keep a close eye on your city.”

  Sully Reirdon smiled at the suggestion.

  “But something tells me you didn’t travel out here to discuss beachfront real estate.”

  “You know why I’m here, John.”

  It was Driscoll’s turn to stare across the bay. “I’ll sure miss the view, but the efficiency I’ll be buying in Brooklyn Heights will cut my commute time in half,” he said.

  “John, I am very sorry about your wife. I know I should’ve been at the funeral, but I was in Albany arm-wrestling with the governor. He knows we need more cops, but he won’t release the sixty-three million he promised the city when he was elected.”

  “How about assigning some of those cops to a drunk-driving detail?”

  “I’ll give it every consideration,” the Mayor said with a nod, aware of the automobile accident that had robbed Driscoll of his wife and daughter. “John, despite what Katie Couric says, I’m not an insensitive man.”

  Driscoll stared at the politician.

  “I appreciate your not wanting to sign off on a case without crossing all the T’s. In fact, it’s admirable. I’ll make certain a competent commander does just that. Right now my city needs you. There’s a guy killing tourists, for Chrissake! And that makes him the department’s priority one. Do you know how much money visitors dropped in the Big Apple last year?”

  Driscoll obliged the Mayor with a shrug.

  “Twelve point six billion! I want you to focus on the here and now. There’ll be no time to waste on yesterday’s cases. Nobody gets to hold New York hostage on my watch. I want this tourist-scalping killer stopped dead in his tracks. And I want it done now!”

  “I wouldn’t be able to fully focus, Mr. Mayor. I’d be the wrong man for the job.” As soon as he heard himself say it, he knew he had pushed the envelope too far. But there was no way of retrieving what’d been said. “Besides, the fact that these two victims were tourists could be a coincidence. The twelve-plus billion speaks for itself. There’s a whole lotta tourists in New York.”

  “Coincidences don’t happen in my city.”

  Driscoll raised an eyebrow.

  “You know, John, you’re beginning to piss me off!” Reirdon stormed to his limousine and ducked inside. “As long as I run this town and you’re on my payroll, you’ll do as I say. Peter, get me outta here!”

  The Lincoln’s tires charred the asphalt. With the two security autos in tow, the Mayor’s limo disappeared along Point Breeze Boulevard.
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br />   John Driscoll sat on the steps of his porch. Despite his obstinacy, he knew the assignment was unavoidable. It would become his job to formulate a strategy to catch this villain.

  Why make waves? You’re not the only cop in town, John. Reirdon said he’d have a competent person nail the case shut. It’s not like its outcome rests on the type of hammer he uses.

  Unpocketing his cell phone, he rang the Mayor on his car phone. Driscoll detected arrogance as Sully Reirdon’s voice echoed in his ear.

  “So, you’ve decided to come around, have you?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “This city doesn’t need a bout of mass hysteria, John.”

  “If these murders lead to a rash of killings, I’ll need to establish a task force. And it would be a big help if the FBI is kept at bay.”

  “You’ll wrap this up before it causes an international stir?”

  “God willing.”

  “What else will you need?”

  “Please. No female detectives assigned to this one.”

  “I’d have never guessed you were a chauvinist.”

  “I support affirmative action and the advancement of all working women. But I just buried my wife. Call it superstition. Nothing more.”

  “You have my promise. No women.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Oh, and John, there’s one thing more.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’d better lighten up or you’ll never unload that house.”

  Driscoll could detect Reirdon’s smirk right through the phone line.

  “Then I’ll just bulldoze the place down to the sea,” he said.

  “You do that and I’ll nail you for pollution of the Atlantic shoreline. What are you asking for the place, anyway?”

  “It’s out of your price range, Mr. Mayor.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, I could get an insider’s deal on, say, a thirty-year mortgage.”