88 Killer th&dl-2

by Oliver Stark

  Eastern Hardware Store, Maywood

  March 8, 1.50 p.m.

  Harper and Kasper headed out of town. They pulled up at a hardware store off the Interstate. It was a vast warehouse structure, a rectangle of steel and plastic thrown up in what looked like a matter of days. The whole complex was a sprawling mass of similar buildings, all with their own large, bright signs.

  Kasper parked close to the entrance. Harper was speaking on the phone to base, but no one had anything. Harper looked around. ‘Big.’

  ‘Sure is,’ said Eddie. ‘This isn’t going to be easy.’

  They met the manager of the store, and followed him up a long, wide aisle of fencing, rails, pipes and tubes until they got to the barbed wire. It was sitting on huge wooden pallets, three different grades, and three different types: razor wire, barbed wire and galvanized barbed wire.

  ‘This the only place someone can get barbed wire in the store?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  Harper looked up and down the aisle. ‘Okay. I want this aisle taped off and dusted for prints.’

  ‘I’m not closing an aisle. It’s a big sales day for us.’

  ‘I’m trying to stop a killer, Sunday or not. I could close the whole store if you’d prefer.’

  The manager shook his head.

  ‘Eddie,’ said Harper, ‘I want this whole area dusted, then the cash register area. We know he’s been here.’

  ‘So have thousands of people,’ said Eddie.

  ‘We might get lucky.’

  Eddie’s eyebrows rose slow and high. He took out his phone. ‘I’ll get Crime Scene across here.’

  They spent an hour with the manager going through the sales data and receipts, picking out every sale of barbed wire. ‘We’ve got hundreds,’ said the manager. ‘No telling which one bought your roll.’

  ‘We’ll take all the names, and follow them all up.’

  The manager handed a printout to Harper. ‘Impossible to tell which one. The digital readings are our own — they only have the product, price and date. No import number, no license. But the batch you’re after — it only came out of the back store nine days ago.’

  ‘Let’s try CCTV,’ said Harper. ‘You keep it?’

  He nodded his head. ‘We keep one week of tape. If it was within the week, we might see someone.’

  ‘Eddie, try to find him.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Within the hour, eight CSU detectives arrived. Their supervisor, Detective Ingleman, moved straight across to Harper. ‘What are we looking for?’ he asked.

  ‘Someone was in here in the last nine days buying a roll of barbed wire,’ said Harper. ‘I’ve got a guy here from the cleaning company, and he’s going to tell you where they wipe down. We know whoever bought it was over in the barbed-wire area, by the cash register, and at the door. We think the door and checkout counter get wiped. I just wonder if you guys can find a needle in a haystack.’

  ‘You’re kidding? You want us to dust a whole store?’

  ‘Not the whole store. The barbed-wire aisle to start with.’

  Ingleman followed Harper to the aisle. He walked up to the pallet. ‘What’s he going to touch, apart from the roll he’s buying?’

  Harper shrugged. ‘It’s a long shot. He may have touched other rolls, the price tags, I don’t know, but this killer is going to kill again. We’ve got to do something.’

  The supervisor walked off, shaking his head. He had a team of top detectives and he was going to ask them to dust a store. He went outside to the vans and organized his teams, shaking his head so much that his jowls wobbled.

  Harper sat down at the computer in the store’s back office. He called Denise. ‘You been getting on with our young profiler?’

  ‘He thinks this was a group attack. That’s going to go to the Captain and he’ll lap it up and pass it to the Chief of Detectives. I need to stop him.’

  ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘Single male, early- to mid-thirties, delusional fantasies, but nothing that would prevent him from operating successfully. You want your type, think controlled, obsessive, and this guy’s got hooked on a clean-up.’

  ‘Like a prostitute killer — a moral cleaner?’

  ‘There’s something in that, something of the cleaner, but it’s strange. Like a military operation, taking out numbered targets.’

  ‘Ex-military?’

  ‘Not possible to say right now. But could be. How’s it going up there?’

  ‘Time is short, the work is slow.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope for something.’

  Harper hung up and wandered out of the small office and into the aisle. He walked up to the team, slowly taking prints off every surface. ‘How’s it looking?’

  ‘We’re getting so many prints, Harper, we’ll be here all day and then it’ll take all night to get them uploaded and checked.’

  ‘We haven’t got all night.’

  ‘There ain’t no short cut.’

  Harper walked away. He sat down. Another hour slipped by, his mind going over the case, detail by detail.

  Eddie came through at 6 p.m. He was nodding.

  ‘You got something?’ Harper asked.

  ‘Come see.’

  Harper and Eddie sat together in the security room. Eddie pulled the tape back and then played it.

  ‘We’ve got a guy here coming out with a cart three days ago.’ He froze the tape. ‘Can you see it?’

  The grainy still was difficult to read. Harper moved closer. At the edge of the man’s arm was a cross of wood. ‘That’s the barbed wire spool?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  They watched the man push the cart across the parking lot, until he was nearly out of sight behind two other cars.

  ‘Problem is,’ says Eddie, ‘we don’t see his face or his car.’

  ‘You looked back and forth?’

  ‘Sure have and it’s empty. Sorry.’

  ‘You must have quite a few guys buying barbed wire — why’d you focus on this guy?’

  Eddie smiled and then pushed in another tape. ‘This is from the camera on the checkout.’

  Harper watched. ‘He keeps his back to the camera, the whole time. Like he wanted to keep his identity hidden.’

  ‘And he pays cash,’ said Eddie, as the man leaned across the counter to hand cash to the guy on the register.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘He’s pretty suspicious for a man in a hardware store, but no, that’s not it. Look at this.’ Eddie moved the tape back and zoomed. There was a close-up of the man’s forearm.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The words.’

  Harper looked down. ‘Loyalty, Valiance, Obedience. The word Loyalty, you mean?’

  ‘That’s what it said on the Capske black card, right?’ ‘That’s right.’

  Harper watched the tape again. He stopped it. ‘It’s got a time and date here. Does that cross reference with the man at the car?’

  ‘Yeah, two minutes later.’

  ‘Go speak to the manager and find out who was serving on the cash registers at that time and then get him here and get a description from him.’

  Eddie stood up. ‘I’m on it.’

  Harper took the sequence back to the beginning and watched it. He repeated it three more times. There was nothing to go on. Then he took out the disk and put in the film from the parking lot. Again, there was nothing to tell him who this guy was. A blue hooded top, white sneakers, blue jeans. The man could have been anyone. He went through it again, right to the point when the man was only distantly visible by his car.

  Then Harper stopped the tape. He zoomed in and peered into the grainy image.

  ‘Eddie!’ he shouted. There was no response. Harper moved across to the door. ‘Eddie, get back here.’

  Eddie ran back in. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Come here.’ Harper’s finger touched the screen. ‘You see?’

  ‘No. What is it?’

  Harper pulled back the tap
e. ‘Just describe what he does.’

  Eddie watched. ‘He wheels his cart between two cars, and then stops. He leans forward. He’s unlocking the car, maybe. He picks up something from the cart. Can’t see what, puts it in the trunk. He stops, leans up against the street lamp, does something with his foot.’ Eddie stopped. ‘Aha!’

  ‘You see it?’ said Harper.

  ‘I see it. Hell, man, that’s good. That’s very good.’

  Harper ran across the store and shouted up the aisle, ‘Ingleman, I’ve got something for you!’

  Ingleman moved away slowly from his team. ‘I hope you don’t want the whole store dusted, Harper.’

  ‘No, but I think I’ve got you a print.’

  ‘Where?’

  Harper led Ingleman into the security room and ran the tape. ‘See there?’ said Harper. ‘He puts his arm up and leans on that street lamp. High up. You think he might have left a print?’

  ‘I like that,’ said Ingleman, nodding. ‘That’s good thinking. How do you know this is our man?’

  ‘We don’t. It’s not a hundred per cent but it’s all we’ve got.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Ingleman, ‘let’s see if we can get a clean print.’

  Within the hour, the print had been lifted from the street light in the center of the parking lot. The team traveled back to Manhattan and went directly to the Latent Prints labs. In the meantime, the print had traveled electronically to the crime lab and was being enhanced and analyzed.

  The prints team worked fast and the print was soon scanned into the national print database. Within a few minutes, a match had come up on screen.

  By the time Harper and the team arrived, it was all completed. The team saw two prints sitting side-by-side, green on a black background. The red hieroglyphics of the points of comparison showed an identical print.

  ‘That’s what I call a breakthrough,’ said Harper.

  ‘We’re lucky he’s in the database.’

  ‘So who is he?’

  The technician clicked on to the personal file. ‘His name’s Leo Lukanov.’ A photograph of a muscular white man in his early twenties came up on the screen. He was covered in tattoos.

  ‘That’s our guy?’ said Eddie. ‘Like Frankenstein in jeans.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Harper.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where’s Denise?’

  ‘She’s gone home.’

  ‘Try her for me, Eddie.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Leo Lukanov was involved in an attack on Abby Goldenberg. Denise went to question him yesterday with Hate Crime Unit. If he’s involved, then Denise is in danger.’

  ‘I’ll call,’ said Eddie. He left the room.

  ‘What’s his record?’ asked Harper.

  ‘Assault, robbery… small-time stuff.’

  ‘He got an address?’

  ‘Yeah, here it is.’

  Harper took the address and rose from his chair. ‘Get moving on a warrant, but we haven’t got time to wait for it. Let’s go.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  East 1st Street, Manhattan

  March 8, 7.05 p.m.

  The man in the long gray coat walked down First Avenue, close to the gutter. He kept his head low and peered out from under a heavy brow. Fourteen minutes into his tour, no sight of his target.

  On the corner of East 1st Street, he saw the preacher emerge from a doorway. The old man was draped in a torn coat that was stained brown from sleeping on wet ground. His nose was broken. One of his nostrils was missing. The wounds were fresh.

  The preacher pushed a sign high above his head. It read Jesus Loves You. He started to speak. ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.’

  The man stopped. His fingers flexed in his leather gloves. He hated weakness. He wanted to puncture the preacher’s lung with a sudden blow. He wanted to watch him cough out his last sermon. Weakness, filth and arrogance. He hated it all.

  ‘It has happened before,’ the preacher shouted. ‘And it will happen again. The beast will appear. A righteous beast. He will destroy the unrighteous. And he will take down the innocents with him.’

  The man was the only person listening in the heat of the night. He stood at the edge of the sidewalk nodding. The preacher was right about the beast, he thought.

  He leaned into the wind and moved back towards his car. His tour of duty was not yet complete.

  ‘It has happened before,’ he repeated as he drove away.

  The streets were busy with traffic making its way down East Houston Street and Baruch Drive. He drove slowly, keeping a close eye on the streets and cursing the careless drivers cutting in as they passed. He traveled under the Williamsburg Bridge and parked again. He crossed the footpath over FDR Drive on foot.

  He walked at a pace, a sweat beginning to form under his heavy coat. He was thinking. There was no difference in his mind between then and now — the line was crossed a long time ago, not by him, but by another man in the shadows. Perhaps the circumstances were easier then. Or perhaps it always felt like you were going upstream.

  The dark skies above Manhattan were closing in with cloud. He watched the stream of white and red lights rushing by, then looked at his watch. Time to go again.

  His next tour was half a mile from the river. Half a mile meant a good time outside the safety of the shadows. He walked away from the wailing of cars as they hit the shell of the Williamsburg Bridge and slipped out beyond it.

  He walked up Delancy and glanced into Downing Park. The trees ahead were covered in pale flowers. They looked ethereal and beautiful. He walked down Abraham Place, stopped and stared across Grand Street. The large apartment block was a grey mass in the darkness, scattered yellow lights like golden bricks trailing up the side of the building. He took out a Black Card. The name was typed. He mouthed the syllables slowly, his spit sticky in his mouth.

  The sky reflected in the puddles on the ground. He decided to take another turn around the block. He didn’t want to be seen waiting for too long. He turned left and walked down to Abraham Kazan Street, circled and returned. Up ahead a figure came into view, walking towards him. He slowed his steps. If it was her, she must’ve been at her mother’s apartment later than usual.

  The figure — a woman in her twenties with brown hair — walked along the side of the road opposite, her heels clipping the asphalt and echoing. Then she slowed. No doubt she had spotted him. He didn’t mind that. People were very predictable. They rarely ran unless directly threatened. He could get very close before she tried to defend herself, and by then it would be much too late.

  He watched the hesitation in her step. He was enjoying it. Fear was growing inside her. It was what his hate fed upon. People’s fear: their open-mouthed horror and pain.

  He had plans for Marisa. He wanted to see how long she would survive in the river. He wanted to watch the cold snake up and grab her, the horrible pain of the cold. She would be subservient then. She would not complain and throw her human rights in his face. She would plead like a dog for her life, for an end of the pain.

  And then he would give her what she wanted. Salvation. A bullet through her head.

  He could tell she was looking at him. She had seen him silhouetted against the dim light and was calculating as women had to do. What are the risks? If only she knew how big the risks were, but the future is blind except to those who are going to hack out a pathway. Only they know the future — the leaders, the visionaries. The victims are always blind.

  He turned and walked away, playing with her state of mind, knowing that she would feel sudden relief. But at the top of the road, as he felt her eyes on him, he turned. How easy to double fear in an instant. Offer a way out, then bar the door. Each glimpse of an escape only increased the fear.

  He stood still and stared directly at her. He saw her take out her cell phone.

  She crossed the street, her phone to her ear as if that would save her. His eyes peered at her as she continued to walk quickly through the tr
ees. She didn’t call out. He imagined she was telling herself that he was just some jerk.

  He let her walk on for fifty yards. He imagined her heart racing as the light hit her eyes, now slowly returning to normal, her mind beginning to tell her she was safe. The road ahead was brighter and she was nearly there.

  A cool wind ran down the avenue and shook the trees along the park. They rattled up above like a child’s toy. The woman shot a look over her shoulder. He wasn’t there.

  He had moved closer and darted into a doorway. He hid for a moment, until he heard her footsteps. Now she was ripe. Now she was confused. He moved out of the doorway and started to run. He wanted to get her as she passed the entrance to the park. It was darkest there, and the park gave him cover. He looked up and down the street and there was no one around.

  He pushed hard against the ground, the wind at his back. The thrill rose up through his body and left him light-headed. When she heard the sound of his boots on the ground, she turned. But he was ten yards away by then and traveling at speed. She didn’t stand a chance. He was a hunter and she was his.

  A whoosh of air from her left side and suddenly she was reeling. Her phone fell from her hand and smashed on the sidewalk. She stumbled and fell. He stood above her, opened his coat and took it off. The uniform was very striking. It was the part he liked to play most of all. It gave him such a sense of power. He towered above her, resplendent.

  ‘Your name.’

  ‘What do you want?’ she said.

  ‘Your name,’

  he shouted.

  She was shaking and breathing hard. She didn’t understand. Above her, his wide eyes stared out. He pulled her into the park, into the undergrowth, his hand over her mouth.

  ‘I will shoot you like a dog if you disobey me,’ he whispered in her ear.

  Marisa shook visibly. He let his hand drop from her mouth. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘No talking.’

  ‘My mother is dying. Please. Please don’t hurt me.’

  She felt the barrel hard against her skull. She was crying in fear.

  ‘You will be punished for talking. Kneel.’

  ‘I don’t want to die. What do you want?’

  ‘Kneel,’ he spat.