Deluge

by Stuart Melvin Kaminsky

  The missing video of the corridor was from ten minutes before Alvin Havel's last class to a few minutes after the class ended.

  She had questions to ask now. Who had access to the monitor security room? Who had the expertise to erase and manipulate the tape? What had been deleted and why?

  Lindsay finished the chili, threw the empty carton in the nearby trash, took her Diet Coke and headed home where she planned to reward herself. She would dare to eat a peach.

  * * *

  Driving to Queens was a nightmare. Taking the subway would probably have been worse. Flack had listened to the police band reports. Just a few minutes earlier a train had been stopped on the way in from Queens when one of the passengers tried to attack the others with a knife. The passengers had subdued him, but the line was delayed for almost thirty minutes while police made their way to the scene.

  Flack shook his head. This trip might lead to nothing, but what else did they have? He had an address for Dexter, the Umbrella Man. He had a full name, Dexter Hughes. Dexter lived in Queens with his sister, Larissa, an LPN and a gospel singer with a bit of a local reputation.

  This had been told to him by Alvino Lopez, who owned the garage on 101st Street where Dexter got his umbrellas. Alvino did not know Dexter's address, but that had been no problem for Flack. The problem had been that no one had answered the phone at the unlisted number of Larissa Hughes, which meant a trip to Queens.

  Roads were leading to Queens. Dexter. The boy who lost his toe. The knife that took it that Mac said was the murder weapon. No, alter that. It looked now, according to Mac, as if it was one of the murder weapons. Keith Yunkin seemed to have an arsenal of sharp and deadly knives.

  Flack arrived at the small frame house a few minutes after ten. Just about that time Keith Yunkin was getting off the subway at the Thirty-fourth Street stop, four blocks from the hotel where Ellen Janecek was patiently checking her makeup for the fifth time in the past hour.

  * * *

  "You all right?" asked Stella.

  "I'm all right," said Hawkes. "A few bruises. What have we got?"

  "Dead people," she said.

  They were in the crime scene lab, papers neatly overlapping and laid out, an image on the monitor, a simplified room with four thick, black supports in each corner. Three shapes were placed inside the room. Two together in the middle, another at the far right. Two others were placed outside the room on the left.

  "That's the cook on the right," said Stella, moving the arrow to the figure.

  Stella maneuvered the arrow on the screen with the mouse and said, "The beams in each corner of the room went together. TNT."

  An animated spark flashed. Hawkes nodded.

  "Beams buckled, ceiling collapsed," she said.

  With that the ceiling of the room on the screen fell and covered the shapes in the room.

  She clicked again and the already bent and twisted support beams buckled and collapsed. The three figures were gone.

  "FDNY arson investigator says the placement of the bombs was perfect, professional," Stella said. "But the kind of material used, the amount, suggested an amateur."

  "Someone wanted it to look like the work of an amateur, but they also wanted to be sure Doohan's and everyone in it went down," said Hawkes. "Why? Custus looks like a professional. Some of those scars on his chest and arms are twenty-five years old at least. Question is still there. Why pretend to be an amateur?"

  "I don't know," said Stella. "I'm running DNA on everyone who died in Doohan's and on Custus. Maybe we've got a bomber besides Custus."

  "Two in one building at the same time," said Hawkes. "Quite a coincidence."

  "Don't believe in them," Stella said.

  She turned back to the computer screen and began typing.

  "Okay, all three people in the bar look up."

  The stick figures on the screen moved their heads.

  "Then Doohan and Custus come in."

  Two stick figures enter the image from the left. The first figure falls. The ground opens and swallows the second figure.

  "Powder, explosive burns and residue on Custus," said Hawkes. "He shot Doohan, fell into that pit."

  "Doohan has powder burns on his hand too," she said.

  "Whose gun is it?" asked Hawkes.

  "Street gun. Registered to a pawn shop owner in Dearborn, Michigan," said Stella. "Reported stolen five years ago."

  "Street gun," said Hawkes.

  "How do you see it?" Stella asked.

  "More questions. If Custus planted those bombs, and it's pretty clear he did, what was he doing standing around outside the bar just before he detonated? He could have been killed."

  "And," added Stella, "what was he talking to Doohan about and why did Doohan run into the bombed-out bar? Did Custus shoot him? Did Doohan shoot himself? Why?"

  They sat looking at the screen. Then Hawkes flipped through the lab reports.

  "We can ask Custus," he said.

  "He'll tell you?"

  "He thinks he's smart," said Hawkes.

  "Is he?"

  "Yes, but maybe he can be fooled. We've got something on our side he doesn't have."

  "What's that?" asked Stella.

  "Science."

  * * *

  The woman was tall, round, and black with smooth skin and glasses at the end of her nose. She could have been any age between forty and seventy. Flack thought that "handsome" would be a good word to describe her.

  She stood blocking the door, arms folded. He showed his identification. She did what few people did. She checked the photograph, looked at him and then back at the photo before nodding her head to show that she was satisfied.

  "Larissa Hughes?"

  She nodded again.

  "You know why I'm here, don't you?" he said.

  "Pretty sure," she said, "but I'd like you to tell me so I don't step in a hole I didn't have to dig."

  "Your brother, Dexter," said Flack. "Can I come in?"

  She stepped out of the way.

  "Prying eyes," she said. "Good-looking white man comes calling at night on a weekday and people will talk. Fewer who see you the better."

  He stepped in. She closed the door behind him.

  "Dexter's in the living room pretending he's watching girls playing softball."

  Flack followed her through a door on the right and found himself looking at a thin black man, seated on a sofa, his head cocked to one side, a gun in his hand.

  "It's not him," Larissa said.

  "I know, but maybe he sent him," said Dexter, aiming the gun at Flack. "Don't move fast and don't reach under that jacket. I've been through two wars, lost one eye and plan to live to sell a lot of umbrellas."

  "He's the police," said Larissa.

  "Sure?"

  "Certain," she said. "Put the gun away."

  He slowly placed the gun on a table next to the sofa.

  "You saw the man who killed Patricia Mycrant."

  "Who?"

  "Woman murdered on the roof above the Brilliance Deli."

  "Shit," said Dexter, turning away and shaking his head.

  "Tell the man, Dexter," his sister said.

  "Man's crazy. I talk, he finds out who I am. He comes over here and slices me unless I get lucky and blow him all to shit. I'm not feeling lucky."

  "You know who he is?" asked Flack.

  "I know," Dexter said with a sigh. "I don't know his name, but I know."

  "How do you know him?" asked Flack.

  Dexter hesitated.

  "He's killed three people," said Flack. "We've got a lot of reasons to believe he plans to kill another one tonight."

  "Seen him coming out of the building with all the apartments," said Dexter. "The yellow one with the dirty bricks, the one your friend said the face of Jesus was on in the dirt. No one believed her."

  "Dorothy is harmless," said Larissa. "Tell the man what he needs to know."

  "I just told him. I seen the man coming out of there maybe ten, fifteen times
, maybe more."

  "Where is the building?"

  "Three blocks down," said Larissa.

  "Take him out and put him away," said Dexter. "If he sees me again, one of us is going to die and the odds are good it won't be him. I'm sixty, shaky and one-eyed. He's young and limpy and I won't be easy to catch, but he'll just keep coming. He's…What do you call it when you see in someone's eyes that he won't give up till you put a silver bullet through his heart?"

  "Relentless," said Larissa.

  "Right," said Dexter. "Relentless."

  * * *

  Lindsay and Danny sat in a narrow pizza shop that promised Chicago-style pizza. In Chicago they promised New York-style pizza. In Boston they promised Philadelphia-style pizza.

  "Can't be sure it was a girl," said Lindsay.

  They were sharing a small sausage pizza.

  "No," said Danny seriously. "After all, his friend Wayne O'Shea caught him coming out of the closet."

  "Funny," she said, grabbing the last pizza slice.

  "Want another one?" he asked.

  "You?"

  "Let's live dangerously."

  "My treat," she said, getting up.

  "Only fair," he said. "You eat twice as much as I do."

  When she got back, he reached for a slice before she could place the pan on the table. He grinned and adjusted his glasses. They were the only customers. The place smelled of grease and grilled meat. Danny felt at home.

  "Have you talked to Hawkes?" Lindsay asked.

  "Just for a minute. He sounds fine. Tired."

  "He's not the only one. We should both get some sleep," Lindsay said.

  "I forgot," said Danny. "Back in Montana you get up before the cows."

  Lindsay began working on a pizza slice and said, "We get a lot done while you're still sleeping. You want to go back and go over the files again?"

  Danny shrugged.

  "One of those kids knows who was in that closet," he said. "So…"

  "We look for boyfriends, girlfriends, angry parents, brothers, sisters," she said. "Long list."

  "We look for anyone who has residue glass in their palms," he said.

  "Let's go back and make a list," she said.

  "Bring the rest of the pizza with," Danny said.

  "A party."

  "Not exactly," he said.

  Lindsay had a vivid moment of recall, the dead teacher with the pencils protruding from his neck and eye. Then, another image, an older one from before she had come to New York, an image that came unbidden.

  "Not exactly," she agreed.

  * * *

  The courtyard building was clean, well lit. The panel of names and buttons looked new, metallic. Most of the name plates next to the buttons were filled in, neatly printed. None of the name plates read "Yunkin" or anything like it. There was, however, one plate that read: THIBIDAULT, MANAGER.

  Flack pressed the button next to the name. No response. He pressed again. Then he put his thumb on the button and didn't let up until he heard a voice, tinny and distant, say, "Come back in the morning."

  "Police," said Flack.

  "Crap," sighed the tinny voice. "Coming."

  A few seconds and Flack heard something on the other side of the solid wood door. There was a slightly larger than standard peephole. The eye that appeared was wide open.

  "Hold it up," said the man beyond the door.

  Flack held up his ID, knowing there was no way the man could possibly read it through the hole. The door opened. The black man who stood there wore dark slacks, a green shirt and a matching green cowboy hat. He also held a pair of sunglasses in his hand.

  "Poker night," the man explained. "Just heading out."

  He was no more than five foot five and weighed no more than a hundred and fifteen pounds.

  "I'm looking for a man. Late twenties. White. About my height. Walks with a limp."

  "Melvoy," the little cowboy said.

  "Melvoy what?"

  "No," said the man. "Lee Melvoy. Apartment Two-A right over mine. What's he done?"

  "Is he in?"

  "Heard him go out about an hour ago, maybe less. What's he done?"

  "I'd like to take a look in his apartment," said Flack.

  "Don't you need a warrant?"

  "I've got one."

  "What's he done?"

  Flack showed him the warrant. He had picked it up from Judge Abbott a few hours earlier. It gave no address, but it read, "the residence of one Keith Yunkin."

  "He's a quiet guy."

  "Jeffrey Dahmer was a quiet guy," said Flack.

  "Yeah. Melvoy do something bad?"

  "Looks that way."

  "Knives," said the cowboy.

  "Knives?"

  "He sells 'em. Shop on Stoneman. All kind of knives. Says right on the window, 'Bohanan's Collectables, Combat, Cutlery.' Works there. Guns too. He stab somebody?"

  "Let's go look at his apartment so you can get to your poker game, cowboy."

  When they got to the apartment, Thibidault opened the door, reached in and hit a switch. A light came on in the overhead fixture in the middle of the ceiling.

  They stepped inside.

  The one-bedroom apartment was as clean and sparse as a monk's cell. Flack had seen apartments like this. He had even seen a monk's cell. Monks get murdered too. Not often. Sometimes monks are murderers. Not often either.

  "Keeps it clean," said Thibidault. "I wish all the tenants were like him."

  "Be careful what you wish for," said Flack.

  The living area held one straight-backed wooden chair with curlicue arms. The chair faced a low dresser atop of which was a fifteen-inch television set. Next to the chair was a wooden-topped desk table with black metal folding legs. In a corner to the left was a cot covered by a sheet under a khaki blanket. The blanket was pulled tight. A pillow rested at the head of the cot. The pillow showed no sign of wrinkle.

  There was one thing on the wall and one thing only. To the right of the cot was a framed black-and-white photograph of a teenage boy and a crew-cut young man. The boy's hair was tumbled over his forehead. The man had his arm over the shoulder of the boy. The photograph had been blown up as much as it could bear without losing the image to grain.

  "That's him," Thibidault. "The older one, only he don't smile, never saw him smile. I don't know who the kid is. Okay if I go now?"

  "The kid's name is Adam," said Flack, moving toward a closed door to his left. "And no, I'd appreciate it if you stayed."

  Thibadualt sighed deeply.

  Flack might want a witness, depending on what he found or didn't find. The impatient man at his side wouldn't be much of a witness, but he would be better than none at all.

  Flack moved to the closed door, opened it and reached over to turn on the light.

  "Never been in there," said Thibidault. "Not since Melvoy moved it."

  A small plywood desk sat in the middle of the room. On top of the desk was a computer that hummed in sleep mode. Against the wall to the right were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Simple. Planks nailed neatly together. Magazines, neatly lined up, were piled on the lower shelves.

  On the wall to the left were two old, battered, unmatched display cases with glass windows. Behind the glass windows were neatly displayed knives, none large, most in sheaths or folded closed. There were about two dozen of them. Through the glass panes Flack could see that the blades that were visible were sharp and glistening.

  On the back wall was corkboard on which a series of photographs had been pinned with small plastic push pins.

  "Who're they?" asked Thibidault.

  Flack looked at the photographs of Patricia Mycrant, James Feldt, Timothy Byrold, Ellen Janecek, Paul Sunderland and another woman and four more men. At the bottom left-hand corner of the photographs of this day's victims was a red check mark.

  "Some friends of your Mr. Melvoy," said Flack, moving to the bookshelves, Thibidault at his side.

  Flack picked up a magazine. Thibidault looked ov
er his shoulder as he flicked through the pages of Beautiful Children magazine.

  "Jesus Christ, he's a perv," said Thibidault.

  "No, he was doing research."

  "Research?"

  There was a wireless phone on the desk next to the computer. Flack picked up the phone and pressed the redial button.

  "Jeffrey?"

  "No, Ellen, it's not Jeffrey," said Flack. "It's Detective Flack."

  "My mistake," she said.

  "A big one," said Flack. "Did you get a call from Adam Yunkin?"

  "No," she said.

  "From Jeffrey?"

  She didn't answer.

  "Did you tell him where you are?"

  No answer.

  "Get out of that room," said Flack. "Now. There's a policeman outside your door. Get him."

  "But…"

  "Get him," Flack demanded.

  "Wait," she said. "There's someone at the door."

  "Don't…" he shouted, but she couldn't hear him. She had put the phone down.

  12

  CONNOR CUSTUS WOKE UP looking at the ceiling of a dimly lit hospital room. He was feeling no pain but he knew that his lack of agony was only a result of the temporary solace of medication. He didn't know what they had given him, but it was working. His own drug of choice under comparable circumstances in both the recent and past had been morphine.

  Connor welcomed the haze, knew that all he had to do was close his eyes and he would be asleep again, but such was not to be. He caught a movement to his right and turned his head to see a vision, a beautiful woman who reminded him of a girl in a Sicilian village whose name escaped him at the moment. The girl in the village was a beauty. So was the drug-induced vision at his bedside.

  He began to close his eyes again when a voice said, "Custus."

  He recognized the voice, the policewoman who had been at the rim of the pit, Hawkes's partner.

  "A mistake has been made," he croaked, throat dry, slightly sore from dampness and the dust of a dead building.

  A straw touched his lips. He drank. The water moistened his throat and tongue.

  "A mistake?" Stella asked.

  "I'm in heaven being served by an angel," he said. "That is certainly a mistake. I belong elsewhere. I'm not complaining, mind you, but if the system fails at this level, than how far behind is total chaos in the universe? I assure you my question is philosophical and not rhetorical."