Heart of a Killer

by David Rosenfelt

  Anders parked in front of the house, looked around as if confused by his whereabouts, and then ambled up to the house. “Hello?” he called out, but did not get a response. He called out again, and again was met with silence.

  He reached the front door and rang the bell, but it made no sound. The fact that it was not working seemed consistent with the general run-down appearance of the house; from up close it looked even more dilapidated to Anders than it had from a distance.

  He tried the bell again, but it was clearly not working. Then Anders noticed that the door was ajar, open about two inches. He called out again, but there was still no answer.

  Proper protocol called for Anders to step back and call in the search team, but the open door was too enticing. He decided to push it open a few more inches, and look inside.

  It was the last decision, and the last mistake, he ever made. The explosion came from under the porch, below Anders, and tore him apart. Secondary explosions came moments later in various areas of the house, reducing it to rubble.

  Novack called in the SWAT team, but by that point there was no one to save, and no one to kill.

  It came as no surprise to Mike Janssen when he was fired. Somebody had to go. It wasn’t going to be the president, though in light of what was happening people would be lining up to run against him in the next election. And it wasn’t the FBI director, at least not yet.

  But when pressure builds up as it was doing, it spits somebody out, and the exit door is usually as low as the top people can get away with. In this case it was at Mike Janssen’s level.

  Janssen wasn’t fired in the way it’s done in the real world. No two weeks severance and “clean out your desk.” That’s not how the Bureau operated, and certainly not in the intense glare of this publicity.

  The announcement was so filled with praise for Janssen that it sounded like a promotion. It portrayed him as the world’s leading expert on aviation terrorism, which was why he got the job after the Southern crash. The investigation had expanded dramatically after the other two incidents, which moved it somewhat out of Janssen’s area of expertise. Which was why, the bullshit announcement continued, Janssen had requested the reassignment. He wanted to get back into the field, to dig his teeth into the Southern crash.

  In that capacity, it went on, Janssen would continue to be an integral part of the terrorist investigation, reporting to the FBI director, Edgar Barone, who would assume overall command.

  The last part was true; Janssen would continue to work on the investigation, focusing on the Southern crash. But in the real world, as he knew all too well, the upward trajectory of his Bureau career was over. When you’re held out as a failure on an assignment with great public exposure, you’re not going any higher. And there had never been public exposure as great as this.

  Also left out of the announcement was Janssen’s anger at the bureaucrats who effectively sent him out to pasture. He would not go quietly, nor would he go privately, but retribution would have to wait. As pissed off at his “superiors” as he was, he was more pissed off at the person or people committing these horrible acts.

  He was going to get them, no matter what it took.

  The number of tips called in by Americans to the FBI was by this point numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and even in crisis mode, there was simply not enough manpower to handle it.

  Janssen, in his former role, was completely reliant on those under him to analyze even the most promising leads. Once he was demoted and able to focus on the Southern crash, he became as hands-on as possible, familiarizing himself with as many of the tips as possible.

  The tips were graded on five levels, according to their potential reliability and significance. One was the highest, and only three and a half percent of the candidates were graded at that level. Janssen set out to familiarize himself with as many of these as time permitted.

  So it was that Janssen became aware of the report that a former employee of ITC, Nolan Murray, at one point possibly had access to the computer systems of both Southern Airlines and Disneyland. Not only that, but suspicions about the employee’s background had led to his termination, or at least would have had he not left abruptly on his own.

  Janssen was not familiar with ITC or CEO Darren Seibert, but a quick Google search showed him to be a formidable businessman, running a large operation. The tip had already been sent to an agent for follow-up, but Janssen circumvented the process and called Seibert directly.

  He introduced himself and asked if Seibert had developed any follow-up information since the initial report.

  “Some. We’ve tried to identify everywhere Murray was while in our employ, and how long he was in each place. We’ve also tried to assess how much access he had.”

  “Do you have all this documented?” Janssen asked.

  “I do. I also have documentation of his falsified personnel records.”

  “Good. E-mail it to me, and then wait for my call.”

  Janssen had the documents in hand within a few minutes, and shared it with members of his team on the technical side of things. Their opinion was that, while it was promising, it was unlikely that Murray’s limited access could have resulted in total security system failures, as happened in the airplane and at the amusement park.

  The caveat, however, was that none of them knew Murray, or how good he was. But for him to have infiltrated and controlled the systems in these situations, he would have to be beyond extraordinary.

  Of course, Janssen knew all too well that was exactly who they were dealing with, someone beyond extraordinary. He assigned a team of agents to focus exclusively on Nolan Murray. They would interview everyone at the ITC offices, as well as the people that Nolan Murray dealt with at the two targeted companies.

  The only thing Janssen hadn’t nailed down was a connection between Murray and the military that would explain his taking over the Predator drone.

  But he would find it, and he would find Murray. He would take the son of a bitch down.

  I tried to reach Novack when I heard about Anders’s death. It was the previous night, maybe an hour after the news reports said it had happened. He wasn’t answering his phone, or at least he wasn’t when he saw it was me calling. On some level I couldn’t have blamed him, since I entered his life his partner was killed and his ex-wife nearly incinerated.

  I was positive the operation that led to the tragedy had something to do with going after Murray. Novack had told me that morning that they had a promising lead, though he wouldn’t tell me what it was. I didn’t see anything in the media about arrests being made, and there was no information about what the police were attempting to do in entering the Montvale home.

  I tried to put it out of my mind; I would eventually speak to Novack and find out what had happened, and what the status of the investigation was. I had to spend the night preparing for the parole hearing, just five days away.

  I had another reason to speak to Novack that day besides getting an update on what had happened. I had petitioned the parole board for the right to call witnesses; it is sometimes, but not always, allowed. Permission to do so was granted, as I suspected it would be.

  Most parole hearings do not attract much attention, but this one certainly would. Even with the national crisis that had unfolded, Sheryl’s case stayed in the news. The publicity would have been much greater if the world were not coming to an end, but the parole board had to know that this particular hearing would garner a great deal of scrutiny. They would try to bend over backward to appear fair, and not granting us the right to call witnesses could have cast them in a negative light.

  Novack was to be my key witness, a fact I had not yet shared with him. I needed to lock that in, and though he’d give me a hard time, I was confident he’d come through.

  I had an idea for a much needed second witness, and that was Kevin Laufer, the part-time computer teacher who had implicated Nolan Murray. My instinct was that Laufer had been lying, for a reason I could not pinpoint
. Novack disagreed, and presented an annoyingly coherent case for his point of view.

  I was sure that Laufer would resist testifying. He was petrified of Murray, and insisted that his talking to us be kept in the strictest confidence. The idea of going to the parole board and saying the same things would probably be far too frightening for him to contemplate.

  I was quite sure that I could get the parole board to take his testimony in a closed session, with Laufer’s name redacted from all public transcripts and pronouncements. I doubted it would be enough to make him speak willingly, and I considered threatening him with revealing him as an ex-con to his employers, as Novack did. It would not be my proudest moment, but I’d handle the guilt.

  I had started calling the hospital every day, to speak to Terry Aimonetti and get information on how Karen was doing. This time Terry sounded more worried than usual; Karen was running a low-grade fever. Nothing severe, but health issues of any kind could impact or prevent transplant surgery.

  I talked to Terry about wanting to move Karen to Columbia Presbyterian, to go under Dr. Jenkins’s care. She seemed willing to do so, and also asked that I set up a meeting for her with him. She wanted to understand everything that was going on, as it related to the health of both her daughter and granddaughter.

  She also asked anxiously if the police detail providing protection would be going with them. I assured her that they would.

  Once I got off the phone, I called Dr. Jenkins, who was quite willing to meet with Terry, and promised to do so as soon as she and Karen arrived at the hospital.

  I took my morning drive out to the prison, something I found myself looking forward to each day. I enjoyed seeing Sheryl; there was no denying it. She was hoping to die, and failing that would spend most of her life in prison, and I was relying on her to be upbeat and brighten my day. I wasn’t sure what that said about me, and really didn’t want to figure it out.

  But on this day, if I was looking for cheering up, she didn’t provide it. She was very upset when I told her about Anders dying. She had never met him, and certainly didn’t send him to that house, but she blamed herself nonetheless.

  “I was quiet for six years, and everything was fine,” she said. “Then I opened my mouth, and all these terrible things are happening.”

  “Things were not fine, Sheryl. You’ve been locked in a cage for something you didn’t do.”

  “I was glad he was dead,” she said, so softly that I could barely hear her.

  “You didn’t kill him.”

  “I wanted to.”

  “Doesn’t matter, Sheryl. The thought police didn’t put you in here.”

  “Are you a ladies’ man, Harvard?” She had an annoying, charming habit of changing subjects on less than a moment’s notice.

  “I used to do okay,” I said, smiling.

  “I bet you did. But not anymore?”

  “Let’s just say I’m reassessing my priorities.” I didn’t want to tell her how I felt. I just didn’t think it was fair to dump that on her, even though I was pretty sure she already knew.

  She did. “I’m the last one you should be falling for, Harvard.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I’m right there with you.”

  “It is,” I said.

  “Hey, when this is all behind you, you’ll start having fun again,” she said.

  At that moment, having fun did not seem like something that would happen again in this lifetime. “That will give me something to look forward to.”

  “While you’re having fun, will you look out for Karen?”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, but my mother won’t be around forever, and Karen doesn’t have anyone else. I would just appreciate it if you would look out for her. You know, take an interest. Call her once in a while, take her to dinner, give her away at her wedding. That kind of thing.”

  I had a lump in my throat. I had never before realized a throat could actually get lumps; I always considered it a mythical conceit of fictional tearjerkers. “I’ll get to know her, and I’ll watch out for her, Sheryl.”

  “Thanks, Harvard. I know you will.”

  And then we stopped talking about the stuff that hurt, which at this point didn’t leave much else. And I realized that I used to think of Harvard as the school I went to. Now it will be the name that Sheryl called me.

  “Novack’s going to be coming to see you again,” Murray said. He was talking to Peter Lampley, who while using his real name of Kevin Laufer had pointed the finger at Murray. It was, of course, done under Murray’s direction.

  Everything was done under Murray’s direction.

  Lampley, Murray, and Daniel Churchill were in their daily, one-hour meeting. Murray found it a wise practice to find time for the meeting each day, no matter what else was going on. It wasn’t so much that he needed or valued their input, and especially not Lampley’s, but he wanted to know everything that was going on. If they knew it, Murray insisted on knowing it as well.

  “Why do you say that?” Lampley asked.

  “Because you told Novack that you’d ask around about me.” Murray was annoyed that Lampley could forget something so obvious and important. “You tried to avoid it, and he threatened to spread the word that you had implicated me.”

  Lampley nodded. “Right. So I’ll just tell him I’ve talked to people, and nobody has seen you. But I’m still working on it.”

  Churchill, pacing the room as he frequently did, shook his head. Lampley couldn’t see him do it, because he was sitting near the center of the room, facing Murray. “No, that doesn’t move the ball,” Churchill said.

  Murray had a rule that he insisted they live by; every move they made as part of the operation had to “move the ball,” that is, bring them closer to their goal.

  “Right,” Murray said. “Telling him that gets us nowhere.” Murray already knew what he wanted to do, but he was waiting to reveal it. Timing was everything.

  Lampley had long ago accepted his position as number-three man in the hierarchy, and it had never bothered him. He felt lucky to be there at all; it was going to make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Beyond anybody’s wildest dreams.

  “Okay,” Lampley said, nodding. “I hear you. What do you want me to tell him? But Novack is no dope; it needs to be something believable. Tell you the truth, the guy scares the shit out of me.”

  “You did well with him last time,” Murray said.

  Lampley nodded, but a bit uncertainly. “Yeah, I just wish we had gotten rid of him when we had the chance.”

  “We turned it to our advantage,” Murray said, and Churchill agreed.

  “Okay,” said Murray, “we need to keep him motivated to come after me. Something to make him think I’m smart, and dangerous, and ruthless.”

  Churchill was still pacing around the room, but he was now holding a handgun. “I haven’t thought this through yet, but I have an idea…”

  Novack was working on four hours sleep. He and Cindy had visited with Danielle Anders until almost midnight, and then Cindy wound up sleeping there, when Danielle didn’t want to be alone. It seemed comforting for Danielle to have them there, though that was a concept that Novack had trouble grasping. At the saddest times in his life, he always wanted to be alone.

  This was one of those times; any time a fellow cop went down, Novack took it hard. And Anders was more than a fellow cop, he was a partner and a friend. But being alone was not a luxury Novack could afford, not now.

  He called a meeting for eight o’clock in the morning in Captain Donovan’s office. It was not correct protocol for a lieutenant to be calling a meeting in a captain’s office, particularly at that hour, but Novack really wasn’t in a “protocol” mood.

  He told Emerson to come to the meeting as well, and insisted that he bring Andrew Garrett. Everyone was there on time, and Novack noticed that the rest of the precinct cops, on duty and off, were around and waiting for a
ssignments. One of their own was down, and they were going to make good on it.

  Novack wasted no time. “They knew we were coming, and they didn’t find out at the last minute. They had this set up before Anders checked out the place the first time. They knew we were coming before we did.”

  “You think Murray has someone on the inside?” Emerson asked, meaning within the department.

  Novack nodded. “I do.”

  Emerson didn’t like where this was going, and didn’t back down. “Like somebody in this room?”

  “Yeah,” Novack said. “And every other room in the precinct. I think he’s in the computers. I think he has access.”

  “Did we put the operation at the house into the system?” Donovan asked. “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t either,” Emerson said.

  Garrett nodded slowly. “It was in there. Maybe not the time we were going in, or the specifics, but we got the address from the state police through the computer. That’s how we corresponded. They even put it in an e-mail. If he were able to read it, he’d have had time to set up the explosives. But…”

  “Bingo,” Novack said.

  But Garrett was shaking his head. “No, I think that’s wrong. I was worried about the same thing, so I’ve been checking it out. If he had access, I’d have found it. He would have to leave prints.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Novack said. “He’s been tracking us all along. He knew I was after him; that’s why he went after me with the car.”

  “From this point on, nothing about this operation goes on the computer,” Donovan said. “If we have something to say to each other, walk down the hall and say it. Like the old days.”

  They agreed, and then Novack said, “We need to go public with Murray’s name. We’ve got nothing on this guy; he’s been pulling our chain from the beginning. We don’t know what he looks like, where he lives, who his friends are. Nothing. But somebody out there does.”