Full Frontal Murder

by Barbara Paul

  “Is this a new case?” Buchanan wanted to know. “Or is it connected to somethin’ we’re already workin’ on?”

  “It’s the Galloway case,” Murtaugh answered. “The laundromat in Hoboken that was firebombed is connected to the Galloway killings. As I just told you, the firebombing was a diversionary tactic, to draw Lieutenant Larch out of Manhattan so the killer could make Holland and the rest of us think she’d been abducted.”

  “Who is this guy Holland anyway?” one of the detectives asked.

  Murtaugh looked at Marian. She stood up and said, “He’s my personal friend. The Galloway killer invaded my private life and took the single most important person there to use as a hostage.” She had nothing more to add and so sat back down.

  “You must be gettin’ close,” Buchanan remarked.

  The detective who’d asked the question nodded, satisfied now that he had a label for Holland. The other detectives in the room who didn’t know Holland—which was most of them—sneaked looks at her back over their shoulders.

  Murtaugh continued. “The killer gave instructions on the tape for a meet … phony instructions, as it turned out.”

  “Ransom demand?” someone asked.

  “Of a sort. The killer said, ‘If you want to see her alive again, you’re going to have to do something for me. Something big.’”

  “Jesus.” Marian recognized O’Toole’s voice.

  “Something big … like what?” Sergeant Campos asked. “What kind of work does Holland do?”

  “Holland is a former FBI agent who’s now a licensed private detective with his own agency, on Lexington,” Murtaugh replied. “You’ll not have crossed his path because most of his work has to do with electronic crime. Almost all of the investigators on his staff are computer detectives. Holland probably assumed he was needed to perform some computer wizardry—I know that’s what I thought. But that was all part of the ploy. The idea was to make Holland think that Lieutenant Larch had been abducted as a way of getting to him, when in fact it was just the other way around.”

  “So what went wrong?” Marian asked.

  A number of things had gone wrong, beginning with a couple of those small unforeseeable incidents that can alter a carefully planned operation in the blink of an eye. Captain Murtaugh had told Sergeant Buchanan to assign two of his detectives to ride the subway with Holland. The meet at the entrance to The Hurricane might be a blind (as indeed it turned out to be); Murtaugh thought that the killer’s insistence on Holland’s taking the subway might mean contact would be made on the train.

  So Buchanan had put a man named Provine and a woman named Grant on the job. But before the train had even left Manhattan, a crazy high on crack boarded, shouting evangelical pronouncements and slashing out wildly with a knife. He’d cut one woman and was going after another when Provine and Grant overpowered him. But even without his knife, the crazy was still dangerous; they couldn’t kick him loose, and the woman he’d cut needed medical attention. So Grant got off at the next stop, supporting the bleeding woman with one hand and hanging on to the cuffed crazy with the other.

  Holland had known nothing about all that; it had happened four or five cars away from where he was riding. After Holland had checked out the entire subway train twice, Provine moved to the car adjoining Holland’s where he could keep an eye on him. But the constant swaying of the train during the long ride began to make the detective feel queasy. The farther they traveled, the sicker he got. Soon Provine was sweating profusely and his skin was hot; then his stomach started cramping.

  Whether it was food poisoning or a virus, it effectively took Provine out of the action. The minute the train pulled into the Coney Island station, Provine made a dash for the men’s room, where he spent a good five minutes throwing up.

  By the time he came out, the station was virtually empty. But two passengers who’d witnessed the assault were still there; they told Provine about the fight on the exit stairway and how four Hispanics had dragged an unconscious man away.

  Provine ventured the opinion that Holland must have put up one hell of a fight. He’d found fresh blood on the steps.

  Marian bit her lip.

  “Tossing your cookies may have saved your life, Provine,” Murtaugh said. “It still would have been a two-to-one fight. But the odds against Holland were four to one.” The captain let his anger show. And Provine still looked as if he should be home in bed.

  When Provine informed Murtaugh of what had happened, the captain immediately launched a search of all the exits and the parking areas. But they weren’t in time. Holland and his abductors were long gone.

  They were just regrouping after their futile search when Murtaugh got a call from Marian wanting to know what everyone was doing in Coney Island.

  “We’ve got a team still in the Coney Island area doing a house-to-house,” Murtaugh said, “looking for anyone who might have seen four Hispanics carrying an unconscious man. They had to have a car waiting somewhere. Also, we’re going to put Holland’s picture on TV and ask anyone who’s seen him since five o’clock today to get in touch with us immediately.” The captain looked around the room. “All right, anything else?”

  No one could think of anything. The meeting broke up, but Murtaugh motioned to Marian to wait. Perlmutter murmured Sorry, Lieutenant as he passed. Walker gave her a grim thumbs-up.

  Murtaugh told her, “I’ll need a photo of Holland.”

  “I don’t have one,” she said.

  They used clips from the videotape. A little after eleven that night Marian sat in Holland’s living room and looked at his image on the big television. There was the zoom shot of him at the sidewalk café, followed by a section showing him with her in the park. They were standing and watching something off-camera, probably the mime. Holland had one arm draped casually across her shoulders. The last thing displayed was a freeze-frame enlargement of his face alone. He was laughing, and he looked happy.

  Every cell in Marian’s body ached.

  The story got a big play because the abducted man was so obviously the S.O. of a police lieutenant. It would get an even bigger play once the TV reporters had time to discover what a moneymaking machine Holland’s agency was.

  She got up and wandered through the apartment, frustrated by being so helpless and outraged that such a thing should happen to Holland. She deliberately fed her frustration and outrage; it was a way of avoiding the thought that she might never see him alive again.

  Her wandering took her into Holland’s computer room—where she spotted something new. A new table, a new chair … and on the table a new laptop with a bright red ribbon tied around it.

  He’d bought her a computer.

  She sank down on the chair and buried her head in her arms on the table. It was too much; the dam broke, and all the anguish of the day that she’d been keeping pent up came pouring in. She mourned the loss of her lover, even though the killer needed him alive. For a while. And then …

  She had never felt so empty.

  After a while, the worst of it passed. Marian raised her head and stared at the silly, splendid big red bow. She slipped the ribbon off the laptop and opened the machine.

  She saw a button labeled POWER and pushed it. The screen came to life; lines of type scrolled past too fast for her to read. Several windows opened and closed, until only ten words remained on the screen: There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Now press ENTER.

  She looked at the keyboard. An oversized key there was marked with ENTER and a bent arrow pointing to the left. Marian pressed it.

  A few more windows flickered by and then the screen steadied. Across the top was a row of icons that meant nothing to Marian. Immediately under that was a small window where a cursor was blinking. But most of the screen was taken up by a larger window, which was blank.

  Marian waited a few moments but nothing else happened; clearly Holland had meant to be with her when she first tried out her new computer. Because she didn’t know what else to do, she tur
ned the machine off. After a brief hesitation, she slipped the ribbon back around the laptop.

  A shower—that was what she needed. She took a long one, shampooing her hair twice. Marian had never spent a night alone in this apartment before. She slipped on a big T-shirt and pulled a light thermal blanket from the bed. Out on the balcony she wrapped the blanket around herself and settled down to listen to the occasional, muted sound of traffic drifting up from below.

  She did not think she would sleep much that night.

  As it turned out, she managed a little over two hours, awaking shortly after six to a kind of edgy need to be up and doing. The garage where she’d left her car opened at seven; she took a cab there and got her wheels back. Since it was still early, she decided to stop by her own apartment and check her mail before going into the station.

  Not so much as a whiff of smoke lingered in the apartment; the place was habitable again. Marian went into the kitchen and turned off the ventilator, which had been left running all this time. Two joined black streaks marred the wall next to the stove. In the sink was a skillet with burned peppers still stuck to the bottom in spite of days of soaking. She threw it out.

  Several messages were waiting on her answering machine, one of which surprised her. It was Abigail James, the playwright whose play was being made into a disastrous mess of a movie, according to Kelly.

  “Hello, Marian, this is Abby James. I’m back in town. They kicked me off the set. I wasn’t even allowed through the studio gates anymore. It’s probably just as well. Otherwise you’d be reading a headline that said DISGRUNTLED WRITER KILLS MOVIE DIRECTOR or something to that effect. So I’ve abandoned Ian and Kelly to their fate—I just couldn’t stand it out there any longer. Give me a call, Marian. Talking to someone who has both feet on the ground would do me a world of good.”

  Oh lord, what timing. At any other time, Marian would have felt flattered. But Abby would have to wait. Marian made a note to call her later from her office, to explain they’d have to postpone their get-together until after … until after.

  The mail had piled up during her short absence. In the stack was a mailing bag. It held a videotape, with a label that said only Watch this when you’re alone.

  The temperature dropped. With numb fingers Marian fumbled the tape into the VCR. And cried out at what she saw.

  There was Holland, in manacles, chained to a wall—pulling at his chain and roaring at the camera like some feral creature captured in a faraway jungle. She could see his hair matted with blood on the left side of his head. At one point he tried a flying kick; his foot came within inches of the lens and the camera jerked back hastily. The last shot was of a piece of poster board on which ten words has been stenciled: If you want him back, mark the Galloway case closed.

  Marian clenched her fists and screamed in frustration and fury. She’d assumed he’d be locked away in a room somewhere, maybe even tied up. But who would imagine that he’d be chained to a wall? What kind of person were they dealing with here? This came very close to torture. The killer was playing, enjoying himself. Laughing at them. Kidnapping Holland wasn’t enough; the killer wanted her to see for herself how her lover was being treated. What better way to put pressure on her? Holland was chained to a wall like an animal because of her.

  For one insane moment she considered doing what the killer demanded. Make up some excuse for the captain, close the case, and get Holland back.

  But then reason returned. Trust the killer to keep his word? Sure.

  It was the ugliest hazard of her hazardous profession; all law enforcement officers risked retaliation against their loved ones, threats against their families to coerce them into doing or not doing something. Marian was not the first it had happened to, nor would she be the last. There was never one answer as to what to do.

  Calm down. When her breathing had returned to normal, she called Jim Murtaugh at home and told him of their Machiavelli’s latest move.

  21

  Marian didn’t have a VCR in her office, so they’d gathered in the captain’s office. Besides herself and Murtaugh, Sergeant Campos, Perlmutter, O’Toole, and Walker were there. A special Getting Holland Back task force. Neither Marian nor Murtaugh had wanted Buchanan on the team, and Marian still didn’t quite trust Dowd. The six of them watched Holland thrashing about and raging at the unseen man behind the camera.

  “If he was less defiant,” Walker said, “if he’d just cooperate with his captor—”

  “Never happen,” Marian and Murtaugh said together.

  None of the five men would have admitted it, but they felt vaguely flattered that Lieutenant Larch should trust them to find her Holland. That Watch this when you’re alone printed on the cassette label meant Don’t tell anyone. Yet here they all were.

  Walker asked, “The cassette’s been dusted for prints?”

  Murtaugh said it had. “Just smears. He wore gloves.” They were all silent a moment, studying the tape.

  Campos growled. “There’s nothing there to tell us where he is. A cement floor, a wall.”

  “A basement?” Murtaugh wondered. ‘A warehouse? It could be anywhere.”

  “An airplane hangar?” O’Toole suggested.

  “A dirty cement floor,” Perlmutter noted, peering at the screen closely. “Let’s try it in slow mo.”

  Murtaugh manipulated the remote; the tape rewound and started forward again, one frame at a time. The picture dipped a couple of times, showing Holland only from the neck down. “This guy hasn’t learned how to use a camcorder,” the captain grumbled.

  “Can you freeze it?” Perlmutter asked.

  Murtaugh stopped the tape. On the TV screen, Holland was pulling at the chain, turned away from the camera, snarling back over his shoulder at the unseen cameraman.

  “Just look at all that rubble on the floor,” Perlmutter said. “That stuff’s been there for years. Wherever this place is, it hasn’t been used in a long time.”

  “An abandoned warehouse,” Murtaugh said.

  “Or an old factory building,” Marian added. “A factory that shut down years ago.”

  “Which tells us,” Campos said, “that he ain’t in midtown Manhattan. Brooklyn looks good to me. Someplace within easy driving distance of Coney Island.”

  That made sense to all of them. The captain growled, “We’d need an army of searchers to find it. One thing we have to do is consider doing what he wants, announcing that the Galloway case has been closed.”

  “Closed!” O’Toole protested.

  “Announcing it’s closed, O’Toole,” Murtaugh said impatiently. “It won’t be closed. Wake up. But even making the announcement might prove dangerous for Holland, since the kidnapper would no longer have a reason to keep him alive. Let’s hold that as a last resort. What happens to an old building that’s been abandoned for years?”

  “City takes it over for back taxes?” Campos ventured.

  “If back taxes are owed. Sometimes the owners pay the tax just to hold on to the land. But it’s a place to start. Get a list of all city-confiscated warehouses, factories, and so on in Brooklyn. Campos, you’re in charge. Divide the list and check ’em out.”

  Campos nodded. “You heard the man. Let’s go.”

  Marian stood up to follow them out. “I’d better get up to Holland’s offices. They’re going out of their minds there—they started calling the station as soon as they saw the news last night. And Holland’s second-in-command has been here twice.”

  “A man named Tuttle?” Murtaugh asked. “I’ve spoken to him.”

  “He left word he wants to use the agency to help find Holland.”

  “But you’ll discourage that, right? Before you go …” Murtaugh motioned to her to close the door.

  She did, and sat back down again.

  He said, “Several years back, I was tracking a freelance hit man who called himself Pluto.”

  Marian nodded. “I read about it.”

  “Well, what you didn’t read was that Pluto thre
atened my wife if I didn’t back off the case. I was getting too close for his comfort.”

  She hadn’t known that. “What did you do?”

  “I got her out of town. But even though I’d made Edie as safe as I could, the fear never really went away. What if he found her? It was like an elevator in my stomach dropping out of control.”

  “Yes.” That’s exactly what it was like.

  He paused. “I think I would have gone crazy if I’d seen Edie chained to a wall. So I do have an inkling of what it must be like for you. Not to mention the self-recrimination. Edie had to abandon her work and hide in fear of her life because of my work. I’ll bet you’ve already accused yourself of putting Holland in danger.”

  She smiled tightly. “I’m still tussling with that one.”

  “Marian, don’t beat on yourself for something that’s beyond the control of all of us. It’s wrong, all of it—our jobs shouldn’t put the people we care about in jeopardy. But accept the fact that there is no remedy for this problem. None. It’s an unresolvable dilemma. Don’t waste your energy on it.”

  Thanks for the pep talk, Captain. But he was just trying to help. “You’re right, of course. Don’t worry about me, Jim. I’ll be all right.” Before he could say anything more, she got up and left.

  Once again Holland paced off the extent of his new world. A half-circle exactly fifteen feet from its center to the perimeter. Slightly beyond the perimeter, four lanterns. Slightly beyond the lanterns, four corpses. That maniac who’d nearly blinded him with the light for his camcorder—was he just going to leave them there until they decomposed?

  The man himself had never stepped into the light, had never spoken. Before he left, he’d pushed in a plastic bucket with his foot. Then he’d gone without a word, the glow of his flashlight shrinking to a pinpoint before it disappeared completely.