Apex Predator

by J. A. Faura

  He had only tried seven murder cases, and the truth was that the clients had flat out confessed to him and asked him to try and get the best deal possible. Drew explained that in order to do that, they would have to put on some sort of defense to motivate the prosecutor to offer some sort of deal.

  In the end, the cases usually went on for three or four days before the prosecutor made an offer of second-degree murder with a minimum of 25 years in prison, which was not at all bad considering his clients had been looking at anywhere from 40 years to a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

  His persistence and performance in the courtroom had also garnered him some high-profile felony cases, mostly involving drugs and gang activity.

  Drew was also the type of person one couldn’t help but like, even when he was the opposition. He had good relationships with most of the assistant district attorneys (ADAs) and judges with whom he worked, in large part because even when dealing with the most uptight and dry personalities he was able to keep a semblance of levity in the situation.

  His practice was doing well, as well as a small firm in New York could expect to do, but truth be told, Drew wanted more. He wanted to get something to really sink his teeth into, and he knew in order to do that he would have to keep his ear to the ground and use every relationship he had with the judges’ clerks, court clerks, district attorney’s office, and the public defender’s office.

  As was the case with every attorney, he could not out and out solicit cases, but he could certainly position himself to catch better cases, cases that were not going to just walk into his office.

  Detective Robert Grady stood in his office looking out the window. Had anyone walked in, they would have most likely made the observation that he looked like a character out of a Dick Tracy comic. He was just shy of 250 pounds and just north of five foot six. He was clearly overweight, but he was one of those men on which the weight looked solid. He had thick, powerful forearms and hands that conveyed his strength every time he shook someone’s hand. He wore his hair in a crew cut, now more salt than pepper, and always seemed to have a five o’clock shadow, even when he had just shaved. The suspenders he wore to hold up his pants were legend around the office, but only his closest friends ever mentioned them in jest, and his tie was never done up all the way. His eyes were narrow, the color of steel and wrinkled beyond his years. The crap he had dealt with over the years and the cruelty and violence he had seen human beings capable of inflicting upon one another had left him with a heavy dose of cynicism and, to a certain extent, bitterness.

  These latter qualities were not unlike those of most of the detectives in the homicide bureaus in almost every precinct. You just knew someone with a twinkle in his or her eye and a bounce in their step hadn’t been homicide detectives for long.

  As he looked out the window, Grady was thinking about the Loomis girl, wondering what her fate might be, knowing what was most likely the case.

  There was nothing concrete to tell him she had been the victim of a serial killer, just like there wasn’t anything to tell any of the other detectives working the other cases involving missing little girls that they had also met a similar fate. But 20 years working homicides had also developed in him a kind of sixth sense about things like these. And this one felt wrong, really wrong.

  He supposed that seven girls gone in three weeks, all taken in broad daylight, usually in front of dozens of people, could be a coincidence. It could be, but he knew it wasn’t. One of the first things to go after working some years in homicide was the ability to believe in coincidences.

  Where to go from here, though? It was just a matter of time before one of the local beat reporters put two and two together or until someone in the department let something leak and then they would have a serial kidnapper/killer story on their hands with every jackass, talking head news anchor speculating on what might be going on in the darkness of New York City, all accompanied by the usual calls from crackpots and false confessions.

  Whoever this guy was, he had to be good to be doing this the way he was. He had to blend in perfectly and not raise any red flags. He had to have impeccable timing to know just when to strike and at least some rudimentary knowledge of police response in order to have a ready way out.

  There was nothing to go on, though, no witnesses, no physical evidence, no trail to follow.

  As hard as it was to acknowledge, he knew that there would most likely be another girl missing before long, and as callous as he knew it was to think, he knew that to catch this guy they would have to be waiting for it to happen and for the guy to make some sort of mistake that would give them something, anything, to go on.

  In most cases, Grady was able to distance himself from the families of the victims. After years of delivering the worst news anyone could get and of seeing some of the worst things man was capable of, he had been able to build a wall around his emotions, but talking to Steven Loomis that night had done something to him. In a sense, he had seen what he himself would look like if one of his girls had been taken.

  Loomis had the hard eyes of someone who had more than a nodding acquaintance with death, someone who had overcome it and who in spite of hoping for the best knew and was prepared for the worst.

  So, in spite of his best efforts to look at this as just another case, Detective Robert Grady felt closer to this one than he was comfortable with. Loomis had gotten to him because he had given Grady the impression that he wasn’t planning on just waiting on the police to do something to find his little girl, and the detective knew that an obsessed parent could compromise a case. While Steven Loomis didn’t appear to be an obsessed parent, he certainly appeared to be a parent that, in spite of his best intentions, could get in the way.

  As he was lost in thought, Mark Mullins walked into his office, “Hey, Bob, did a Steven Loomis come talk to you?”

  Grady looked back from the window, “Yeah, he did. How exactly did he know to come talk to me?”

  Mullins hung his head sheepishly, “I know, I know, but you met the guy, he would have detected bullshit in half a second and he would have gone on to do something on his own.

  “Hell, I don’t know he still won’t go do something on his own, but I know that if I had lied to him, we would have lost his trust and this shit is getting deeper. So maybe I blew it by sending him to talk to you, but I would rather take the flack for that than have a guy with access to intelligence resources not trusting us and more than likely getting in our way.”

  Grady smiled a sardonic smile, “Yeah, I know, I would have probably done the same thing, and you’re right, he probably is going to do some of his own digging. The trick is going to be to keep him informed enough to try to keep him out of our way as much as possible.

  “Let’s not kid ourselves, the guy was in the business at some point and he isn’t just going to sit with his arms crossed, but it will be better to keep him in check by keeping him in the loop than by giving him pat answers he’ll see through anyway.”

  Mullins scratched his head in response, “I get what you’re saying, but do you think it’s a good idea to let a civilian get that involved? I mean, he could leak some info and then we’d really have a shit storm on our hands.”

  Grady came around his desk and plopped down on his chair while he looked out over the city, “No, he strikes me as a pretty cool customer and to be honest with you, this one feels bad to me.

  “I don’t know what it is, but it just feels wrong and maybe having a different perspective, someone to keep us in check, might not be a bad idea on this one.”

  Mark Mullins thought he knew Bob Grady as well as anybody, and in all of his years of working with the man, he would have never expected to hear him say what he just did.

  Mullins didn’t respond to Grady, he just nodded, turned around and walked out of the office. Truth be told, though, this one felt wrong to Mullins, too, and when something felt wrong to seasoned homicide detectives in New York, they te
nded to take their gut feelings seriously.

  After taking his wife to the emergency room to get her sedated, Steven Loomis brought his family home. Their SoHo condominium was nothing spectacular, but it was modern, spacious and tastefully decorated. It was a good balance of SoHo modern style and décor more typical in a house from the suburbs. It was full of family photos and mementos from recitals, along with the requisite smattering of toys on the floor that a home with three children would have.

  He had to carry his wife up the steps while the doorman opened the door. After walking in and telling his kids to get ready for bed, he took her straight to bed.

  After getting some food into his and his kids’ stomachs, he put his son and daughter down to sleep, reassuring them that their little sister would be coming home soon while choking back the tears from knowing that it was a lie.

  Steven Loomis had been in the business of killing, of getting intelligence to plan assassinations, of executing operations that required ice water running through his veins, and so as much as he wanted to have the hopeful light in his chest that any father would have that he might get his daughter back, he knew she was gone.

  Seven girls, three weeks, same M.O. No, Tracy Loomis would not be coming back home. Years of dealing in death gave men like Loomis a detached certainty about it that they most often didn’t want but couldn’t help but have and which they knew was almost always true.

  Now Steven Loomis needed to decide what he was going to do about it.

  He had to decide what he was going to say to his wife when she found out what he already knew and he had to figure out how he was going to explain it to his children.

  He knew, no matter what, that his family as they all knew it was shattered forever.

  On his way home, Steven Loomis had tried to assume the role of concerned parent, of someone without the resources to do anything about the situation, but came to the inevitable and quick conclusion that he would not be able to just stand by.

  Now he had to decide what he was going to do to find out what happened to his daughter, but most importantly he also had to figure out what if anything he was going to do to those responsible for whatever it was that happened to her.

  When all was said and done, it was this last part that caused the most conflict in Steven Loomis’s mind, because in spite of having convinced himself he would do nothing, he also knew that to be a lie as well.

  At precisely 6:30 p.m., Donald Riche stepped out of the elevator in Nancy’s building, and by the time he got to her door, he was Trinity.

  He had morphed seamlessly into the natural predator he was born to be. As promised, he had the DVDs and the popcorn for him and for the girls. He rang the doorbell and waited with anticipation.

  Nancy answered the door after a few seconds and smiled, “Hi, Donald! I’m almost ready, I just have to finish my makeup, but come in and make yourself at home.”

  He walked in and went into the living room where the two girls were playing with their dolls, “Well, hello there, Mia! Who’s your friend?”

  Mia looked at Donald and then at her friend. She was still a bit wary of the man, but he looked nice enough and he did have some DVDs and popcorn.

  She gave a tentative smile and answered, “Her name is Emily.”

  Trinity smiled at Emily, a beautiful Asian child with beautiful long, dark hair, “Hello, Emily, it’s nice to meet you. Mia told me she liked The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Do you like those too?”

  Emily pondered for a second and responded, “Hmm, weeell, I actually like Aladdin better, but Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid are nice too. I like the crab in The Little Mermaid.”

  What a delight this was! To Trinity, this was like a lion charming the gazelle and watching it prancing about in its own habitat without a care in the world, without the knowledge that it was in the presence of the being that would end its life.

  He smiled at Emily, “Good, maybe next time if I get to watch you both again, I’ll bring Aladdin. How would that be?”

  Emily smiled, “That would be nice. Are we really going to eat popcorn when we watch the movies?”

  His smiled broadened, “Yup, that’s actually what we are going to do. I brought these movies for you and I brought some for myself too. So you both can play and watch your movies in Mia’s aunt’s room and I’ll be out here, okay?”

  Both girls smiled and nodded.

  Nancy came out just as Trinity was giving the girls their DVDs, “Mia, did you say thank you to Donald?”

  Before Mia could answer, Trinity responded, “They did and we were just deciding that they would watch their movies and play in your room and I can watch my movies out here. Would that be okay?”

  Nancy looked at Mia, “You guys can play in my room, but remember not to touch any of my makeup or my jewelry. Remember what happened with my lipstick last time you played in there. I don’t want that to happen again, got it?”

  Mia was nodding, “Okay, Aunt Nancy, but Mr. Donald brought popcorn for us. Can we eat it in your room?”

  Nancy thought about it for a second, “Alright, you guys can eat it in there, but be really careful and make sure you don’t get any on my bed.”

  Mia answered, “We won’t, will we, Emily?” Emily shook her head.

  Trinity reassured Nancy, “Don’t worry, Nance, I’ll look in on them now and again, just to make sure they’re being careful. I’m sure they will be, right girls?” Both girls nodded and smiled. Trinity was mesmerized by the natural beauty that was there, just waiting to be perfected. Even Emily’s smile with a baby tooth missing was enthralling to him.

  He was sure he would find plenty of beauty to do something with.

  She was the first Asian girl he had considered or would work on and he was anticipating experiencing a different sensation.

  Nancy took one final look at herself in the mirror before heading out. Once again, had she been a bit older or a mother herself, she might have noticed the subtle change in his focus on the girls, the change from a helpful colleague to a grown man looking a little too intently at the two little girls.

  But the moment passed and Trinity went back into his façade of normalcy.

  “Have fun, Nancy, and don’t worry, I’ve got your cell phone number and I can text you if I need you.”

  Nancy turned around, kissed Mia and then turned to hug Trinity, “Thank you so much, Donald! I have totally been waiting to see this show, and I don’t know when I would have had another chance, so really, thank you!”

  Trinity played the part to perfection, not too eager, but just a friend trying to be helpful, “Don’t mention it. Like I said, it’s just as easy to watch movies here as it would have been at my house, and they both seem like well-behaved young ladies.”

  Nancy grabbed her purse and went to walk out the door, “Thank you anyway and really, I will be home right after the show…well, maybe I’ll have a quick drink with the girls afterwards, but I’ll still be home early, I promise.”

  Trinity smiled and held up his hand, “Don’t worry, we have plenty of Disney to keep the girls busy.”

  He thought for a beat and thought best to also add, “And I’ll just have them wait for you to get their pajamas on. If they fall asleep, I’ll just put them on your bed until you come home.”

  Nancy smiled and as she was walking out of the door she turned back, “That sounds great. I’ll see you later.”

  Trinity flashed a smile of true delight, “See you later.”

  As he closed the door, he turned back to look at the girls, much like a lion would look at the smallest and weakest gazelles left behind by the herd. He knew he would not be able to do anything, but he could watch and learn and enjoy.

  Chapter 3

  Detective Mullins walked into Bob Grady’s office as he was just getting off the phone.

  Grady had the pictures of all the missing girls sitting on his desk along with a stack of tips, sightings and other
related materials. “Bob, we just got word of another two girls missing.”

  Grady looked up immediately, “And you think they might be a part of our investigation?”

  Mullins nodded, “Six and seven years old, similar M.O., there one minute, gone the next.”

  Grady rubbed his eyes in frustration, “Damn, this is going to break out soon. Someone is going to leak it or some reporter is going to start putting two and two together. Shit, who knows, maybe it would be better if it did get out, might shake some useful information loose instead of the load of crap we’ve gotten so far.”

  Mullins responded, “You don’t mean that. You know if this gets out the guy might go under or move on…”

  Grady interrupted again in frustration, “I understand, but at least if that happens, little girls would stop disappearing.”

  Mullins stood at the door and looked down at the floor. Grady settled into the chair behind his desk. “I’m sorry, it’s just that this case is really getting to me.

  “We should have something, anything, by now and we don’t have dick. I just don’t know which way to go on this anymore. I’ve been on the phone with the FBI to see if we can use their profilers to develop a potential sketch of this guy, but you know how that goes.”

  Mullins answered, “Yeah, hit or miss and don’t worry about it, Bob, I’m a big boy and I get it, I do. You’re not the only one with a little girl, you know. I know mine are in college now, but they’re still my little girls, always will be.”

  Grady motioned to the chair in front of his desk, “Thanks, here, have a seat. Let’s go over what we have so far. I’ve been doing it over and over, but you know a fresh set of eyes can sometimes catch something that’s been missed.”

  Mullins sat down, “Alright, let’s do it. I have a conversation scheduled with the detectives handling these last cases, but I think it will be more fruitful if I can share everything we have so far with them.”