88 Killer th&dl-2

by Oliver Stark

  ‘Harper!’ shouted Denise. ‘I got him!’

  The killer rose slowly. ‘What the fuck…’ he said, but the lug wrench came down again, hard on the head. No mercy. One specific target. She hit him again on the same spot. ‘On the floor!’ she screamed. ‘On the fucking floor.’ He didn’t obey. She hit him twice, as hard as she could. Blood splattered her hand, but she kept him there and screamed, ‘On the floor, flat on the floor!’

  She could hear Harper running up the alleyway. The man stirred and tried to speak. She hit him again. ‘Do not move,’ she shouted.

  The body at her feet lay still on its front, a large wound on his head, blood creeping across his skull and on to the ground.

  Harper appeared, his gun trained on the body on the ground. ‘What the hell?’ he cried. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s him, Tom. He doubled back on you. I saw him coming after you. I had to take him out.’

  Harper just stared. Denise stood, her heart pounding, her body feeling strong and powerful, the lug wrench poised for another blow.

  The killer lay prostrate, groaning in pain, his right hand clutching the wound. Harper flashed the light over him then pulled out his cuffs and jumped on the body, cuffing him.

  ‘Well done, Denise,’ said Harper. He rolled the body over. ‘Let’s see what we got.’ Harper’s flashlight illuminated the face staring up at them and he felt the shock jolt him.

  ‘It’s Jack Carney,’ said Harper. ‘You’ve attacked a cop.’

  Carney groaned. ‘I tried to fucking tell her. She’s brutal. Just kept hitting me. Jesus Christ, my head.’

  ‘Save your strength, Jack,’ Harper said. ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘Hate Crime Unit got the call from Dispatch. We got here a few minutes before you.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Denise. The lug wrench clattered to the ground. ‘I didn’t realize.’

  ‘You didn’t fucking check,’ said Carney. ‘Just lucky you didn’t have a gun.’

  Harper knelt and uncuffed Carney. ‘Where are they, Jack? Did you see?’

  Carney motioned to the building opposite. ‘There’s a garage. Second along. He parked in there, then I heard him lock the front, so I went around the back. He’s gone already. Are the children okay? I didn’t check if they were in the car.’

  ‘We don’t know. We hope so. Can you walk? We need to stick together.’

  Jack was helped to his feet. Denise decided to say nothing and just looked at the ground. She picked up Jack’s gun and handed it back to him. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Listen, lady, this goes nowhere, right? Nowhere. No one finds out I got pummeled to the ground by one of our own, by a civilian. By a woman.’

  ‘All right, Jack, this stays here, but let’s get back to the garage,’ said Harper.

  ‘I got the whole thing on the radio, got here fast as I could. I should’ve identified myself. I didn’t fucking see her. She must’ve been hiding.’ Carney grimaced through the pain.

  Behind them, the patrol cops arrived. ‘We’ve got a man down,’ said Denise. ‘Call for Emergency Medical Support.’

  ‘Scrub that,’ said Jack. ‘There’s no one down and no need for a medic yet.’

  They moved across to the garage. Harper sent the patrolmen around the back entrance.

  ‘We’ve got to break this,’ said Harper.

  Denise ran back for the lug wrench. She smashed down repeatedly on the lock until the old wood shattered.

  Harper kicked the door and the lock finally gave. They dragged it open. Denise ran to the trunk of the car and lowered her head to speak. ‘Ruth, Jerry, can you hear me? It’s okay, this is Dr Levene. If you’re in there, let us know and we’ll get you out. You’re safe now.’ She heard a kick from the car. ‘It’s the children!’ she shouted. She ran over to the car and tried the trunk. Locked. She called, ‘It’s okay, you’re safe. We’re with the police.’

  The kicking continued, frightened, irrational thumping of panic.

  ‘Stay still, you’ll hurt yourselves.’

  Denise tried to force the lock with the wrench but it didn’t budge. She passed it to Harper. He tried but also failed.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Harper. He ran to the back of the car, a knife in his hand. He pushed the blade under the rim and tried unsuccessfully to pop the trunk latch.

  He looked around and had a second idea. He opened the back door and found the seat lever. He pulled out one seat and cut a hole through to the trunk. Denise stood at his shoulder. ‘Be careful,’ she said. Harper ripped back the material with his hand. They waited a moment.

  Two small hands, like two petals of a flower, reached out and turned in the dark air.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  North Manhattan Homicide

  March 13, 9.22 a.m.

  Denise waited for Harper all morning at the station house. She hadn’t seen him since they’d recovered the children the night before. She’d tried his apartment early but there was no one in and Harper’s phone went direct to message. When he didn’t show up in the investigation room, she asked Eddie Kasper where he might be.

  ‘Only four places I’ve ever found him:investigation room, the park, his apartment or the Cathedral.’

  ‘The Cathedral?’

  ‘St Patrick’s. He’s deep, you know.’

  ‘He disguises it well.’

  Denise left the team. They were poring over the details of the previous evening’s operation. The relief was palpable: the two children, Ruth and Jerry Glass, were in police custody and they wouldn’t make the same mistake again. But the repercussions of the night in Borough Park would be felt for some years. The only good thing to come of it was that so many neo-Nazis had been caught and arrested, so there were fewer of these misguided minds on the streets. Jewish organizations were working together to find an appropriate way to make a statement and show solidarity with the victims.

  Jack Carney was the name being passed around, not Tom Harper. Carney had got there before Harper. He’d seen the danger. He’d spotted the killer, and even Harper admitted that Carney’s presence had meant that they had avoided the unthinkable.

  Maybe that’s what was bugging Tom Harper. A rival for the city’s affection. A new hero.

  Denise found him alone, in the quiet of St Patrick’s. He was sitting hunched over the pew in front of him. Not exactly praying, but somewhere close. She walked over and placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘How you feeling?’

  Harper turned, surprised. ‘You,’ he said.

  ‘Eddie said you might be here.’

  ‘When I need some perspective.’

  ‘A close call.’

  Harper turned and his eyes bored into her. ‘The 88 Killer had them. He had his hands on them. If he’d wanted to kill them there and then, he could have. It couldn’t have been closer.’

  ‘But he didn’t. And if you and Jack hadn’t thought as fast as you did, then it would’ve been worse.’

  ‘But how the hell did we miss it?’

  ‘You didn’t. They were in protective custody.’

  ‘Then we’ve severely underestimated this killer.’

  ‘He knew they could ID him — he took a very big risk. We were seconds away from catching him. Harper, this is what happens. You get close and they panic. This is how you catch them. You scare them into doing things in a way they don’t want to.’

  Harper hit the pew in front of him. ‘What did we do wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘He should be behind bars by now.’

  ‘Stop it, Tom. Without the surveillance operation, you never would have suspected he was after the kids. We never would have shut down their attack in Borough Park.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Then let’s leave the self-pity for later. He’s still out there.’

  ‘It’s not self-pity, Denise. I’m grateful.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, it’s just important that we’re gr
ateful. A few minutes later and we’d be searching for a child killer.’

  ‘Don’t think about it. We need you now. As I said, he knows we’re close and it’s freaking him out. He’s making poor decisions. We can flush him out, Tom.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Harper.

  Denise pressed both hands firmly on to his shoulders. ‘There is a lot of detail to take in and process.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been going through it. There’s something we’re missing.’ He turned to Denise and saw her eyes searching his. He felt a jolt of emotion that caught him off-guard. ‘He’s going to do something big,’ he said. ‘If he knows the kids saw him, he realizes his time is short. He’s not going to go out without a big finale.’

  ‘You got any ideas?’

  ‘Plenty, and I don’t like any of them.’

  ‘We need to work on his background,’ she said. ‘We need to understand him. It’s still not coming together. He’s acting the part of a Nazi, but I don’t know why.’

  ‘You’re right about that,’ said Harper. ‘I can’t get it straight in my head. Either I’m going mad or there’s something here that just doesn’t fit. You know what I think? I think our killer knows what we’re up to. I need to work this through.’

  ‘Just tell me if you’re going mad,’ said Denise, ‘and I’ll get you put in a nice ward, no question.’

  ‘Appreciate it.’ Harper let a half-smile curve his lips. ‘Let’s get back to the station house. I’m done with praying for now.’

  Eddie Kasper appeared at the front entrance ‘You okay, Harps?’

  ‘I’m okay. How’s things?’

  ‘Still no sightings of Heming?’

  ‘He’s pretty good at evading us. Whenever our guys show up, he seems to have already left. Like he knows. Like he’s getting information.’

  ‘You think he listens to the police frequency?’

  ‘I’d be a whole lot surer if I had him in the cell,’ said Harper. ‘Heming escaped last night, but it was a close call. This thing has wheels within wheels.’

  ‘I got the photographs of Heming’s place for you.’

  ‘I visited last night after we got the kids back. Anything new?’

  ‘They emailed it through. Take a look.’

  Harper opened his email and glanced through the pictures. Heming’s life was a sad little affair. But he was a serious Nazi. He liked swastikas, Nazi memorabilia and Nazi combat knives. Harper looked up. ‘He’s your all-American loser with a power fetish and a perverted intellectual grasp of history and politics.’

  ‘Just about sums him up,’ said Eddie.

  ‘I want Denise to see it. She’s still not convinced that Heming matches the profile of the 88 Killer. Will you show her?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Eddie.

  Up in the investigation room, Harper flicked through the reports that had started to come in from the house searches on all the Nazi rioters. They had photographs from over twenty homes. It was all the same. Little hidden bedrooms and garages set up like film sets of the Third Reich. There were flags, insignia, Nazi literature, swastikas everywhere and framed photographs of mass murderers from the Nazi regime.

  The poverty of the lives they were leading was unsettling. This was America. Brooklyn. One of the most diverse and vibrant places on the planet, and yet these resistant little cells continued, feeding on scraps that they could interpret as reason to hate. It wasn’t life they were leading, they were in a spiritual and moral vacuum, unaware that every day, they were destroying themselves.

  ‘Did they get anything I don’t know about?’ called Harper.

  ‘They were thorough,’ said Eddie. ‘Every part of these apartments was tagged, boxed and removed. But it’ll take weeks to go through all the computer files. We’ve cracked a big organization, Harper.’

  ‘But left the lead psycho roaming the streets.’ Harper looked up. He could see that the hate model that Denise had out - lined would work with a man like Heming — personal slight, perceived slight, a build-up of violence and highs from the kills — but was this guy the same man who tortured Capske, killed Becky, Marisa and Esther, who was holding Abby?

  Lafayette came down and patted Harper on the shoulder. ‘Good work, Harper.’

  ‘It’s not over.’

  ‘Not yet. But we got to hope, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Listen up,’ said Lafayette. ‘We just got a request from the Jewish community. They feel it’s important to respond to last night’s attack.’

  ‘It sure is.’

  ‘They want to show solidarity with the victims and give New Yorkers the chance to come together to show positive support for the Jewish community.’

  ‘What do they say at Headquarters?’

  ‘The Mayor is behind it, so we’re behind it.’

  ‘Could be a security risk. What are they planning?’ asked Harper.

  ‘There’s going to be a major vigil for the murder victims and a celebration of the Jewish community. They want to use Union Park. Thousands will show up.’

  ‘That’s not good news — it could just be another target for him.’

  ‘If you can’t stop the killer then you sure as hell can’t stop them mourning and joining together, Harper.’

  ‘It’s dangerous, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here. Leave will be canceled. You need to put together your team. It’ll be policed so heavily nothing could happen, but I want your eyes and ears down on the ground.’

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Lock-Up, Bedford-Stuyvesant

  March 13, 9.58 a.m.

  He knew everything, past and present. He knew pain and the absence of pain. He knew success and he knew failure. He had failed. They were so fucking close. He had to think. He had to do something. Something that changed the game for good. He faced the wall in full uniform. He felt the pain again. Failure.

  He took Abby Goldenberg, Prisoner 144002, out of the tiny closet that had been her cell for the past few weeks, and felt the rush of pain. He pulled her into the center of the room.

  ‘Reject your Jewry or you die now.’ The gun rose, pressed hard against her temple. She trembled but did not speak. He had failed. Again. His superiors would be unhappy with him. Again.

  ‘It is a new game I have to play now, 144002. I have to hurt them. They have children who could identify me. I need to do something that will be remembered for all time. And you are going to pay too, unless you choose differently. What have you got to say?’

  ‘I need food,’ said Abby.

  The killer snarled. ‘No more food.’

  ‘Please,’ she begged.

  ‘My boots are dirty.’ The killer twisted the barrel of the gun tighter to her temple. ‘Every day, my father made me clean his boots. And if they were not clean, he threw them into the cellar. I had to go down into the dark to fetch them. There were no lights in the cellar. It was damp and cold and so dark. I can’t tell you how dark it was. When I was in the cellar, he would shut the door and lock it. I was in the cellar for hours. When he let me out, he would inspect his boots again. But in the dark, I could not clean them well. He would throw them down those stone steps again. Again and again, until his boots shone.’

  ‘Your father was unkind,’ said Abby.

  ‘Cruel and unkind. Yes. Now open your shirt,’ he ordered. Abby remained still. ‘It is an order.’

  Abby trembled and fumbled with her buttons. He dragged her shirt open and pushed it over her shoulder. ‘You are scared to die, Abby?’ He pulled a knife from his belt and held it to her chest. She shook and swayed but refused to cry out.

  ‘144002,’ he said. ‘Now you must choose.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘You repent now, 144002. Reject your religion. I am here to save you. You will be one of the saved. One of the 144,000. I have to help them. It is the final time, the moment, and we must be ready. Your time has come.’

  She was crying. He rested the barrel on the top of her head. �
�Can you feel how close death is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you reject your Jewry, Abby? Will you be one of our number? Reject it, as I have done. Abby? Will you?’

  She looked up. She shook her head. ‘No, I will not.’

  He pushed her hard and in anger. She flew across the ground. ‘You think you are better than me? I make them all reject their Jewry. You will too, when the pain is too great. I promise you, you will scream to give up your Jewry.’

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  North Manhattan Homicide

  March 13, 11.05 a.m.

  Erin Nash was standing at the entrance of the station house. She’d given up the subtle approach and was trying to stalk Harper into submission. He had studiously ignored her calls since the operation.

  The NYPD had failed to capture Martin Heming. In fact, they’d let him slip through their fingers. Nash wanted the scoop. She knew from sources within the NYPD that Harper and Carney had nearly come face to face with the killer, and that Harper could give her an exclusive.

  Erin had started digging into Heming’s background. He was your standard little guy with a big chip on his shoulder and some dangerous ideology to help hone and focus all his negative energy.

  From reading his websites, she guessed that Heming was acting out of personal anger and perceived slight, and out of the ideological bigotry he’d absorbed through ten years of neo-Nazi meetings and ultra-right-wing conferences.

  Nash also found something more interesting. He seemed to be acting out of a long-lasting resentment of his own wife and hatred for her new Jewish husband. Was it that simple? He was just some failed, cowardly impotent, looking for a target to hit out at. There was nothing extraordinary about this man who had killed all those innocent people. Nothing extraordinary at all. In fact, he was banal.

  Erin spotted Detective Harper and Levene walking across the street to the station house. Harper looked bad. She jumped out and blocked his path.

  ‘How’s my hero?’

  ‘I’m not a hero.’

  ‘They say if you try hard enough, everyone gives in.’