by Oliver Stark
Mark Garcia turned. He was wearing a pink shirt and even from a distance, Denise could smell his cologne. It took a moment for him to identify the woman in front of him, to place the pale face that he hadn’t seen for three months. Then recognition dawned on him. ‘Hey, fellas, look who’s come back home!’
The other detectives turned. Apart from Gerry Ratten, they’d all worked the American Devil case. Harper felt the hairs on his neck stiffen as he turned and saw Denise standing there in the doorway, in the same black suit that she’d worn the day he met her, when she was safely ensconced in One Police Plaza as a psychotherapist who looked at the aftermath of trauma and kept her distance from the streets.
Rick Swanson had pulled on his gym kit, a Yankees sweat top and a pair of black sweatpants. He was a mean and cynical son of a bitch, but even he felt the atmosphere and smiled.
Garcia took a glance around the room. The detectives of Blue Team were a tight group and Denise had worked with them and suffered for it. A team didn’t forget that. Garcia started to clap. The others joined in. And Denise Levene stood, her cheeks flushed red, not knowing where to look. Harper stared at her, brimming with pride and a strange fear. Whatever she’d been through, they had to make sure it wasn’t repeated.
The clapping died down. ‘How the hell are you?’ said Swanson. ‘Took your time. I thought as a psychologist you could’ve healed yourself.’
‘I’m wondering how you’ve all got time for applauding some amateur profiler when you’ve got a case to work. I hear it’s a bad one.’
She walked directly to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup. Harper sidled up. ‘Denise,’ he said. ‘I—’
‘Don’t say a goddamn thing or I’m going to break here.’
Harper closed his mouth, took a step back, let her regain composure. ‘Welcome home, Denise,’ he said.
Denise leaned her back against the wall and took a look around the room. ‘Feels odd to be back in here. Nice cubicles. You’ve been busy building.’
‘You haven’t seen the Captain since he spent some time in the Bronx.’
‘Always captures the big ideas, doesn’t he?’
Harper nodded. ‘You get anywhere with Abby?’
‘Yes, thanks to you. I met some real morons. The worst was Leo Lukanov. Leo gave a false alibi for the evening when Abby disappeared, and it transpires that Dr Goldenberg saw him the day before in a car outside the house. So we’ve got extra time on the case.’
‘That’s good. You were brave to go over there.’
‘Well, I’m feeling better. I’m here to return the favor.’
‘Profile?’
‘I can try.’ Denise spotted a wiry fair-haired man in one of the new cubicles, who had eyed her a few times. She nodded towards him. ‘Is he the competition?’
‘The kid in the corner with the snarl? He’s the FBI’s boy. New profiler from the New York Field Office. He’s squaring up for a battle. He’s heard about you. You’re all we talk about.’
‘Only to piss him off, I hope.’
‘Yeah, only to piss him off. Second-rate, unfortunately, even though he’s trying.’
‘Well, let’s hope that’s good enough.’
Harper laughed. ‘You’re going to kill him. It’s not a fair fight. Not fair at all.’
‘Where are you on the case?’ asked Denise. ‘We’re waiting for something to break,’ Harper told her. ‘We found the killer’s kill kit last night. We’re just checking out leads.’
‘Good, that’s progress.’
‘Well, I’ve got the case-files set up for you. Take your time, just as long as you’ve got something by this afternoon.’
Denise looked up. ‘No honeymoon period? This really is like old times. Where are you headed?’
Harper picked up his coat. ‘I’m going to check out some barbed-wire manufacturers.’
‘Lucky you,’ said Denise.
Chapter Twenty-Two
North Manhattan Homicide
March 8, 12.30 p.m.
Harper arrived back at the precinct. He had news about the barbed wire to give Lafayette. What he had was good but he needed something more. He approached Eddie. ‘I got your message. Where are they?’
‘In the interview room.’
‘How sure are you?’
‘It’s good, Harps.’
They headed straight for a small interview room that had been set up with three phones. Three Chinese cops were on the phones, speaking in Mandarin.
‘They traced the number, like I asked?’ said Harper.
‘Just like you asked.’
‘And they got something?’
‘They did. Harps, you were right.’
‘I don’t care about right, I care about catching this guy. Let’s see what they got.’
‘The purple serial number you found on the spool was our only lead,’ said Eddie. ‘We’ve been chasing that number all morning. We reckon the barbed wire is a Chinese import, and the serial number had an import number next to it. We traced the import number through shipping number via customs. We’re tracking down manufacturers.’
Harper looked around him. ‘In China?’
‘There aren’t too many barbed-wire manufacturers importing to the US, so we’re down to the last one. But I don’t know that the number will give us anything. Even if we find where it came from, we might not see where it went to.’
Harper put his hand on the shoulder of one of the guys. ‘Anything?’
Detective William Hong nodded. ‘We think we’ve got the manufacturer. They’re tracing that batch number, might be able to tell us where it was sent.’
‘Call me the second you know,’ said Harper.
He walked back into the investigation room and sat down by Denise, on an old plastic chair. ‘How’s it been?’ he asked.
‘Okay.’
‘No progress?’
‘Not yet. I’m just absorbing all the details. It’s not nice.’
‘No,’ said Harper.
‘There’s nothing on the bullet. You anywhere with that?’
‘They can’t ID the bullet. It’s so mangled. It’s just a lump of metal. I’m going to get it looked at. There’s something more to it. Why, what are you thinking?’
‘I need to know what kind of gun he used. It might tell us something.’
‘Like what?’
‘Confidence with a gun, military background, who knows.’
‘They say it was a 9mm bullet.’
Denise nodded. ‘I went through the sequence of events, the witness statements, the confession letters, the forensic details, the autopsy protocol. Then I went through it all again.’
‘And?’
‘He’s not a political animal. He’s a sociopath. I agree with you — I think there’s something else, too. Something…’
William Hong emerged from the interview room and called across. ‘Harper, we’ve got it. This consignment was headed for Washington. Then headed for a commercial supplier.’
Harper turned. ‘And where did they send it?’
‘It’s been a ride. The commercial supplier sent it to a local state wholesaler. They found the order. We know the shop this spool was bought from.’
Eddie Kasper took the faxed copy of the import order. Chinese letters across the top of the paper. ‘If he’s a right-wing pro-America freak, Harper, do you think he knew he was buying Chinese barbed wire?’
Harper felt the release in the tension with the breakthrough. ‘We got to get up there, have a look at the layout. See if they have CCTV. But first, I’ve got to tell Lafayette that we have a lead. It’ll buy us a few more hours.’
In the background, Denise looked through Harper’s murder book. A sketch of a wind-ruffled falcon graced one page. She turned over and saw the strange sketch of dots and scratches that they’d seen at the morgue.
‘Sorry, Denise, you were about to say something?’
‘No, nothing really. Hey, you thought any more about this?’ she asked.
�
��No, why?’
‘Another strange sense I get. I think I half recognize these marks, but I don’t know why or how.’
‘Well, give it time — it’ll come.’
Levene drifted into thought. An image from her childhood emerged deep from within her memory, but it was so vague she couldn’t capture it. Perhaps it was some picturebook her father had showed her. If so, it was before he went to prison, when she was nine years old. She didn’t remember the book. She remembered black and white photographs, her father not speaking, just turning the pages in silence, then when she turned, seeing her father’s tears. His large leathery hand stroked her hair. She could taste his pipe smoke in her throat and hear the accent that never left him.
Her hand reached out and moved across the scratches. Something appeared, a pattern of some sort, but she couldn’t read it. Not yet.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lock-Up, Bedford-Stuyvesant
March 8, 1.05 p.m.
He parked his old sedan three streets away, put on an overcoat and baseball cap, then walked the rest of the way, past derelict housing blocks and shuttered shops scrawled with graffiti.
He reached the razor-wire fence and pushed through a small gap at the side into a grassy alley between two buildings. He walked through to a wide patch of scrubland that was once the backyard of a clothing business that had long ago closed down.
Several stray dogs appeared from each corner of the square, eager-eyed and barking. The man took out his bag of meat, which consisted of cheap scraps that he collected from the meat market. The dogs ran towards him, yapping and jumping, saliva dripping and swinging from their jowls. There were about sixteen strays of all types. He took out handfuls of fatty meat and tossed them around the yard.
The dogs were his homemade security force. He’d started to feed them a few months back, after he’d found the abandoned garage on one of his tours of duty. He knew that a lock-up without additional security would not last in that part of Brooklyn, so he’d spent the time trying to get the dogs to see the garage as their place and defend it. No one would try to get past a pack of wild dogs. Not even gangbangers.
He got to the door of the garage and unlocked each of the three padlocks. The dogs surrounded him, yelping and circling tight around his legs.
He pushed open the door and flicked on the light. The dogs ran in all around him and their barking filled the room and echoed against the tin roof. He threw more meat down and filled three bowls with water.
He sat in a battered armchair and started feeding some of them by hand. They fed furiously, angrily, gulping down the lumps of fat and gristle with excited glee. They were a pack, a team, but underneath that organization, they were out for themselves. If one of them got injured, they’d tear the animal to shreds.
The man stood up and went back to the door. He threw the remaining lumps of meat into the yard and watched them tear out of the room. He slammed the door shut and breathed excitedly. Around the room, there were several scaffolding poles that leaned against the walls, and bags of sand and cement piled in corners. Outside the garage door stood a large pallet of bricks. He’d brought about four dozen bricks into the room and had started to mark out two internal walls along the floor, coming out from the back wall. He’d been planning on a building project for a while now, but was waiting for the right kind of girl. It was going to be a room within a room, a very special room. One he’d dreamed of his whole life.
The large brick garage had been empty for years. A piece of derelict real estate in a part of town no one wanted to live in. He had a new door fixed, new bolts and padlocks. He’d bricked up the one small window. Across the garage was a second door which once upon a time housed a bathroom. The cistern and sink had been smashed. He’d cleared the room out and sealed it up as best he could.
He took a metal plate from a shelf next to the door. Removed a piece of dry bread and a small piece of cheese from a tin, and put them on the plate. He then poured some water from a bottle into a metal cup. He placed both at the bottom of the door where there was a hinged flap.
He stood at the door, knocked twice and pulled back a small slot that he’d cut in the wood. He stooped and stared into the room at the bundle lying on the floor.
‘Stand,’ he ordered. The prisoner did as he requested. He did not listen to her when she spoke or cried. He had taught himself to believe it was another language. The language of lies. She stood and turned her back to the door. He moved his hands through the slot and unbuckled her wrists and then her mouth restraint. Then he shut the slot and pushed the metal plate through the hinged flap with his foot.
A few seconds later, a bedpan was pushed out. He picked it up, took it outside the door and threw the contents on the ground. The dogs ran at the sewage as if it were more food.
As she was eating, he started to undress and place his clothes in a wooden trunk. From the trunk he took out another set of clothes. He was going hunting again. He dressed in his hunting uniform, slowly adding each item of clothing that he’d carefully sourced over the years. He pressed his hair flat to his head and looked at himself in a jarred fragment of mirror. His eyes flinched at the sight of his own dark hair and olive skin. He moved his gaze quickly to the uniform to stem the self-loathing that flooded within him at the sight of his own features. He shifted nervously from foot to foot, letting the whole effect grow in his mind and now feeling excited by the transformation.
He walked to the cell and knocked. He kicked the clean bedpan through the hinged flap. A moment later, the empty plate and cup appeared at the bottom of the door. He knocked again, opened the slot and the prisoner stood again and turned. He stared into the tiny cell, and opened the door.
Every day, it was the only interaction he allowed himself with the prisoner. Distance was important.
He walked the girl out into the room, where she picked up the tin of boot polish from the table and a rag and knelt at his feet. She started to polish his boots as he stared down at her.
‘That is good, Abigail. You are behaving well today.’
‘I hope you’re pleased with me,’ she said. ‘I try to please you.’
He pulled back and looked down at his boots. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now stand. I need to inspect your cell.’
Abby moved away as he leaned into her cell and checked the door hinges and the mattress.
‘I recognized your cologne. I’ve smelled it before. I just can’t think where.’
‘I’ve been close to you a number of times, Abigail. I came close to taking you but each time something got in the way.’
The memories suddenly clicked.
‘The man in the dark. You pushed into me.’ She felt a shiver of fear, then anger, a fury that she couldn’t control. She picked up a brick started towards him.
He heard the movement behind him and turned. The girl was running towards him. He was shocked for a moment. A brick hit him hard on the side of the head. He stumbled backwards into the cell, his hand grabbing on to the door frame. She smashed the brick down on his hand and he let go, tumbling backwards. She pushed the door shut on him, but he wasn’t unconscious. His boots, bright black and shining, kicked the door open. The girl was hit but did not give up; she approached again with the brick.
He stood up, a trickle of blood over one eye, cradling his left hand. She stared, panting, the brick raised.
‘It’s wrong, what you’re doing. It’s sick and it’s wrong and I want to go home,’ she shouted. ‘I won’t stay here. I won’t!’
He moved towards her. ‘You betrayed the trust I put in you, Abigail.’
‘Don’t come any closer or I’ll smash your filthy head in.’ ‘Will you?’ he said, and closed in on her. The girl raised the brick, but he was expecting that. His arm came across to bat it away, but the brick didn’t move; her body shifted and her left leg rose high in a karate kick and the side of her foot hit his chin. He reeled backwards.
‘Don’t come near me,’ she shouted. Then she stepped towards the doo
r. ‘Help!’ she screamed. ‘Help!’
‘You will be punished for this, you realize. And I will make your father aware of every moment of your suffering.’ He stepped towards her, his face angry now.
‘Get away from me. You find suffering a turn-on, do you, you sick bastard?’
He moved quickly. She threw the brick at his head; it glanced off his shoulder. She twisted, punched and kicked. But he came too fast and his bulk pushed her back and pressed her against the wall. He held her there, his mouth close to hers.
‘They will find you dead, Abigail. A naked corpse on your father’s doorstep — half-eaten by dogs. But I want to find out how close to death you can go. How slowly I can kill you.’
She was shivering. His hand tightened around her neck. He leaned back and smashed his forehead against her nose. ‘You will not be beautiful any more.’
He gritted his teeth. He shoved her hard into the chair, took out a knife and started to chop away at her hair as she wept and screamed. She stared into the shard of a mirror leaning against the wall. The girl she knew, the girl everyone knew, was disappearing. All around her, her long brown hair lay discarded on the floor.
‘We will not call you Abby any more.’
‘What?’
‘You are an experiment now, not a person. We will call you 144002.’
‘Fuck you,’ she spat.
He breathed, his hand so tight around her arm that he could feel the bone.
‘We will call you 144002.’
‘No.’
He pushed her head back violently and she stopped speaking for a moment, but she needed to know. To know why.
‘What are you doing this for?’
‘144002 must be quiet. 144002 speaks again and I will cut out 144002’s tongue.’
The girl stared across. Her eyes fixed on the red and black insignia on his arm. He smiled. ‘You can’t believe it, can you? But it is real. It is very real. This is not a dream. You will not wake up. You will never wake up from this.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
