Airtight

by David Rosenfelt

  But shot by the police? How could that be? Steven was completely nonviolent, dangerous to no one but himself. Chris had time to speculate while Laura was crying, and the most likely scenario he could come up with was that Steven had been caught in the middle of a drug shoot-out between the cops and his dealer.

  He wasn’t even close.

  “They shot him in his apartment,” Laura said. “They said he was holding the gun when they came in.”

  They both knew that Steven only had a gun at Chris’s insistence. In the neighborhood that he lived in, Chris felt it was necessary. But it was another example of Chris’s futility in trying to protect his brother; Steven had once admitted that he usually kept it unloaded.

  “Tell me everything you know,” he said.

  “There’s a judge, Judge Brennan, who was murdered; I think just a couple of days ago. He’s the one who was going to sentence Steven. For some reason they thought that Steven committed the murder, so they went to his apartment. The cop who did it said he had the gun, and that he shot Steven in self-defense. They’re calling him a hero. But he’s lying, Chris. The person he’s describing is not Steven.”

  “Let’s go to your apartment.”

  Chris said little during the ride. He had already pushed the pain and sense of loss at least temporarily to the side, as he was trained to do. That training led him to instead plan and focus on the mission, even though he was not yet sure what the mission would be. But one thing was certain; he was not going to simply accept his brother’s death and head back to Afghanistan.

  What he needed was information, much more than Laura could provide. And much easier to gather than most people might realize.

  He had brought a computer with him; it went with him everywhere. His specialty, before he went Force Recon, was in communications, which in the modern military was totally computer driven.

  Gallagher sat down with the computer in front of the TV set in Laura’s apartment and got to work. It was even easier than he thought. Biographical information on Lieutenant Lucas Somers was plentiful; he had won a series of awards and commendations, and each story about them went on at length about his background.

  Within a few minutes Chris knew Lucas Somers’s life story, knew that his parents were deceased, that he had a brother who worked as an investment banker on Wall Street, and a sister-in-law who was a prosecuting attorney. He even had pictures of everyone, and committed them to memory. This was not a time for mistaken identity.

  Amazingly, Somers’s phone number wasn’t even unlisted, so Chris had that as well, though there was no address shown.

  The newscasts left little doubt as to how the police operation took place. Somers led a team into Steven’s apartment and gunned him down. They had little interest in taking him alive; all they wanted was the kill and the subsequent glory, so that they could make their victory tour on television the next day.

  Chris had all he could do not to focus on what must have been going through Steven’s mind as his killers entered the apartment. He knew the intense fear he must have been feeling, with no one, especially not his brother, there to help him.

  Chris had a number of ways to find out where Somers lived, but he didn’t have to utilize them. That’s because the TV coverage included his neighbors being interviewed. One of them referred to Somers living “right next door,” as he pointed to his left from in front of his own house.

  The newscast gave the man’s name, and his address was listed in the phone book, which meant that Chris now had Somers’s address as well.

  He would be paying him a visit, and how Somers answered his questions would determine whether he lived or died.

  They were easily the most devastating words Bryan Somers had ever heard.

  Not even the sentences informing him of the deaths of his parents had that kind of impact. They had each been ill, and he had time to prepare for what had become the inevitable.

  This came out of left field, and left him reeling.

  And left him looking for his brother.

  He didn’t call Luke, and it was not because he had forgotten his cell phone at home when he left … almost staggered, out of the house. On a gut level he knew that he had to speak to his brother in person, to see his face when they spoke, even though he had no real idea what he would say.

  It was a twenty-five-minute drive from his house in Englewood Cliffs to Luke’s house in Paterson. He didn’t even notice the time as he drove, but it wasn’t because he was lost in thought. He had lost the ability to think clearly in those moments, probably the first time that had ever happened to him.

  He arrived at Luke’s house on East Thirty-Ninth Street and parked in front. It was a well-kept residential neighborhood, but economic light-years apart from Bryan’s own home. The houses were on small plots of land, with less than twenty feet separating them on each side. Bryan’s pool probably could fit on Luke’s property, but only if the house were removed first.

  There was a car parked in front of Luke’s darkened house, unusual in that there was an ordinance prohibiting parking on the street at night. Bryan might have wondered why it was parked in that particular spot, since the street was otherwise empty and Luke did not appear to be home. Bryan might have noticed this, if he was in a mental state to notice anything.

  Even though it seemed as if no one was home, Bryan got out and went to the front door anyway. He did so basically because he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. And no matter what happened, he was going to talk to Luke that night.

  The doorbell went unanswered, so without a cell phone to call Luke and ask him to come home, Bryan stayed on the porch, sitting on the steps and occasionally getting up to pace. After a half hour, he wondered whether Luke might already know that he was there and, more important, why. Perhaps Julie had called him. Either way, there was nothing to do but wait, and he would wait as long as it took.

  Bryan didn’t notice Chris Gallagher sitting in the driver’s seat of the car parked out front. There were no street lamps nearby, and the interior of the car was too dark to make anything out. But Chris had not taken his eyes off Bryan since his arrival.

  Chris had spent that time formulating a plan. He knew from his online research that the man on the porch was Luke’s brother, Bryan. He seemed agitated, but that was not Chris’s concern, since it was highly unlikely that his distress had anything to do with Chris’s situation, or Steven’s death.

  As he was trained to do, he weighed the merits of the plan in his mind, careful to keep it untainted by emotion. It seemed to Chris to be more than workable; it could provide cold justice to the cop who had killed Steven while, more important, giving Steven a posthumous exoneration.

  He made one phone call, keeping the phone turned in such a way that Bryan could not see the light. The call was to a marine buddy, to ask for the favor that could make the plan workable.

  It was a large favor, but it was granted, no questions asked, as Chris knew it would be.

  Chris got out of his car, closing the door softly behind him, so that it was still ajar, but the light would not stay on. He approached the porch, and did it all so quietly that Bryan did not even realize he was there until he heard his voice.

  “What time do you expect your brother?” Chris asked, though he knew that it was a question for which Bryan did not have an answer. Bryan would not have arrived when he did if he knew when Luke would get there. And he certainly would not have rung the doorbell, checking to see if Luke had been home.

  Bryan felt a twinge of fear. He couldn’t make out Chris’s features in the darkness, but the voice was not familiar. Yet this man somehow knew that Luke was Bryan’s brother.

  “Any minute,” Bryan said, annoyed with himself for using Luke for protection in that way. At that moment, with his anger at Luke so intense, he did not want to have to depend on him for anything.

  “Really,” Chris said. It was not a question, but rather a statement that revealed, with some amusement, his certainty that Bryan
was lying.

  “Do I know you?” Bryan asked.

  “You’re about to,” Chris said, and in one incredibly quick and silent movement glided forward and rammed an elbow into the side of Bryan’s head.

  Bryan slumped to the ground, or would have had Chris not been there to catch him. He lifted Bryan as if he were a toy, put him over his shoulder, and carried him to his car. He looked around to see if he had been seen, though it wouldn’t have mattered much either way.

  Chris drove away, with Bryan unconscious in the backseat. He took no particular satisfaction in what he had done. He and Luke were not yet even, not even close.

  But they would be.

  The phone woke me at five o’clock in the morning.

  Cops are not like normal people when it comes to middle of the night phone calls. Most people experience a moment of panic, fearful that the hour of the call means that something bad has happened to someone they care about. And very often their fears are justified.

  We cops are different in that we’re positive that something bad has happened; nobody calls a cop when they have good news. For example, I’ve never gotten a radio transmission or call urging me to head to a place where someone has reported reading a good book, or listening to pleasing music.

  The other difference is that we don’t worry so much about the call when it comes, because it’s almost never about someone we care about, or even know. There’s no personal attachment to it; we care, and we’re sworn to protect, but it’s a job.

  But caller ID this time told me that this was something different, and I instantly became just like every other person in this situation. It was my brother calling from home, so something had to be wrong with either him or Julie.

  “Bryan?” I said when I picked up the phone.

  “It’s not Bryan,” Julie said.

  Even in just those three words I could hear the anxiety in her voice.

  “Julie, what’s wrong?”

  “Bryan’s gone, Luke. He left last night, and he hasn’t come back.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. We talked about our marriage. I said things I’ve needed to say … I’ve wanted to say … for a long time. I told him I needed time to think about our marriage.”

  “Think about your marriage?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Thinking about whether I wanted to stay in it,” she said. “God, Lucas … what the hell is the matter with me?”

  “Take it easy, Julie.” What she had said opened up all kinds of questions, none of which I was willing to ask. Instead I focused on Bryan. “So he just stormed off?” I asked. “Did you try and call him?”

  “He slammed the door so hard it broke the handle. He left his cell phone here, so I have no way to reach him. He didn’t go to your house?”

  “No, I haven’t heard from him. He’s probably at a hotel, maybe in the city.” In a way I was actually a little relieved. The worry of the late night phone call was at least removed; wherever Bryan was, he and Julie were physically fine.

  “Luke, I also told him some things I didn’t mean to say.” She paused while I cringed. “Things I shouldn’t have said.”

  “Oh, shit. Julie.…” Alarm bells were going off in my head.

  “I’m sorry, Luke. I know I promised.”

  Julie and I had a brief affair, if you could call it that. I prefer to think of it as a moment of sexual weakness, even though that isn’t technically an accurate description, either. It happened six years ago, a month before she and Bryan were to be married, when he was expressing doubts about going through with the wedding.

  So she was angry, and we were out commiserating, since I had recently had a breakup of my own. Not that my breakups were exactly news events; you could set your clock by them.

  But what happened between Julie and me wasn’t revenge sex or even rebound sex. I wish it were, since that would have been the end of it. I was in love with Julie, I was before it happened, and I have been ever since. I also believed that she was in love with me.

  We never talked about it again after that night, and until this phone call I thought we never would. But I learned a lesson; if you’re going to fall in love with someone, your sister-in-law is not a terrific idea. Unfortunately, I was never able to put that lesson to any good use, since Julie is my only sister-in-law. And it was too late to stop loving her.

  “It’s OK, Julie. We’ll deal with it. I’m sure I’ll be hearing from him soon.”

  “Please tell him to come home, Luke.”

  “I’ve got a hunch that right about now advice from me isn’t going to carry the day.”

  “Will you let me know if he calls you?” she asked.

  “Of course.” Then, “Julie, why did you tell him?” She had to know it would be devastating and hurtful to him, which made it uncharacteristic for her to have said it. She was also breaking a promise to me in the process, which represented another surprise.

  “You know why, Luke.”

  The truth was that I did not have the slightest idea why. For some reason, women are always crediting me with being way more intuitive about them than I actually am. It’s the worst of both worlds; I’ve never had a clue what they are thinking, but because they believe I do, they’re less inclined to spell it out for me.

  But whatever the reason, the way she said, “You know why,” made me less eager to press the issue. I was now at the place I had no desire to be, directly in the middle of their marriage. When Bryan started screaming at me, I wanted to have as little information as possible, sort of like a POW undergoing interrogation. I wanted to be on a “need to know” basis, and I didn’t need to know any of this.

  Julie and I once again agreed to contact each other if either of us heard from Bryan, and no longer able to sleep, I got dressed and headed for the office.

  The media furor had not quite died down yet, as reporters were focused on delving into Steven Gallagher’s background. His life was both short and difficult, though no one seemed to have any idea that he had violent tendencies.

  Those who knew him professed shock that he could have committed a murder, but that has become standard stuff these days. For every serial killer there seems to be a dozen neighbors who swear he seemed like a quiet, nice guy, the last person you’d expect to have chopped up all those people.

  Media requests for interviews were still coming in, but I declined all of them. I had “been there, done that” and I didn’t want to spend the whole day refusing to answer the questions I had refused to answer the day before. Besides, it had taken me twenty minutes to remove the makeup; from now on I was going strictly “au naturel.”

  I had plenty else to do. I had a bunch of recent homicides to occupy my attention, and it’s not like the citizens of New Jersey were going to stop killing other citizens of New Jersey any time soon.

  So I tried as best I could to make the day “business as usual,” but in the back of my mind was Julie’s phone call, and the fact that I hadn’t heard from Bryan. His silence brought home very powerfully how hurt he must have been by what he saw as our betrayal. And the truth is that he was right, “betrayal” was the correct word for it.

  Bryan was not exactly the type to shy away from verbal confrontations; he believed everything should always be out in the open and discussed to death. It was one of the many ways in which we were different; I was always on the lookout for rugs to sweep things under.

  So I knew we would have the conversation, he was entitled to at least that much, and that it would be a difficult one. I always felt huge guilt about the night with Julie, and while I had obsessed over it ever since, I had done so privately. Now it would be out in the open and openly talked about.

  Ugh.

  But I deserved whatever grief Bryan would give me.

  I just wanted to get it over with.

  It was a completely disorienting feeling.

  Bryan Somers woke up having no idea where he was, or how he got there. It wasn’t that he was gr
oggy; he actually came to a state of alertness fairly quickly. Fear and confusion can do that.

  He was lying on a couch in a dimly lit room. There were no windows, the walls were gray-painted cement, and light was provided by recessed bulbs in the ceiling. It seemed to be a small studio apartment; he was in a den-like area, which was attached to a small kitchen. There was a bar stool tucked under a counter, a dresser across from the couch, and a small television sitting on the dresser. There was also a small receiving box on top of the television.

  The strangeness of the surroundings, and his lack of knowledge of how he got there, was horrifying enough. Worse yet was his discovery that a metal clasp on his leg was attached to a long chain, which in turn was attached to a radiator in the corner of the room.

  He got up and walked around the room, checking it out. There was a small bathroom with a stall shower, and the kitchen was fully stocked with food and drink. He was not going to starve to death, at least not for a while.

  The door was locked from the outside, and no amount of pulling, pushing, or shoving affected it. Screaming for help yielded nothing as well, and from the solid nature of the walls, he doubted that anyone outside could hear him, even if they were out there. There was no phone and no computer, and therefore no apparent way to get in touch with the outside world.

  Bryan turned on the television, and was very surprised to see that it worked. It seemed to be satellite television, and Bryan quickly recognized the stations as all New York affiliates. Wherever he was, it was in the New York Metropolitan Area.

  He tried to piece together how he had gotten there, but drew a blank. He remembered the conversation with Julie, and it brought back a wave of pain. He also remembered going to Luke’s house, and waiting for him when he wasn’t home.

  But after that it was a blank. Could Luke have done this to him? Even though Julie’s revelation made him question how well he knew his brother, Luke kidnapping him in this manner made absolutely no sense.