Forbidden Birth

by William Rubin

  Without missing a beat King, a short, barrel-chested man with a crew cut, chimed in with his distinct Southern drawl. “And that is what we are here for, gentlemen. Now, as y’all know, last year Congress passed legislation to fund a Division of Medical Crimes for any state that forms one. It was a highly irregular move for Congress to fund a criminal investigative unit at the state level, and it came with strings attached.” King paused a moment.

  “The state would receive funding to create and maintain the division only if it acknowledged the FBI’s lead role in interacting with the state in such investigations.” King slowly scanned the room, making eye contact with everyone in turn.

  “Local law enforcement doesn’t have to call in the Feds on any of these here medical crimes cases—it’s ultimately the governor’s call on that,” King said with a nod towards Spatick.

  “But if we are called in, we are unequivocally in charge of said investigations. Now, I know you Yankees don’t much appreciate having the Feds stepping on your toes, particularly in cases like this where the Bureau previously had no jurisdiction whatsoever. But be that as it may, from now on the FBI will oversee all aspects of this investigation and provide the necessary resources to bring this matter to a swift conclusion.”

  The rest of the room, with the exception of the governor and his people, stewed in silence as King outlined the Bureau’s short-term investigative goals and how they would be achieved. King then delivered the FBI’s standard speech about the importance of teamwork in bringing the madman to justice. His pedantic tone and style were a perfect carbon copy of every other agent at the FBI. I could feel my heart beat quicken and my face getting redder. This friggin’ smug bastard was taking my case away before I had a fair chance to solve it! I wanted to drag his fat ass into the hallway and beat him to a pulp, but all that would do was get me fired and booked on assault charges. So instead, I slowed down my breathing and unclenched my fists and listened to King drone on.

  The next twenty-five minutes were spent in heated discussion—the governor and RJ King on one side, the mayor, Commissioner Kelly, and myself on the other. We insisted local law enforcement knew best how to proceed and tried to convince and coerce Spatick to keep the Feds out of it. Spatick claimed it was too late for that. He reminded us of the DMC charter and funding arrangement with the federal government. He also reminded us that it was his call whether or not the FBI was running our case. In effect, it put our dear governor, known as much for his poor judgment and intellect as he was for his political savvy, in charge of all of us.

  SHIT!

  King concluded the meeting. “All right then, it’s decided. We need an arrest in this case and soon.”

  No shit, Sherlock! This guy is a real genius, I thought.

  I wasn’t sure how I was going to make this new arrangement work, but I needed to figure it out for the sake of the community, my family, and my job.

  Spatick chimed in with some oh, so helpful advice. “Let’s all get out there, work together, and make it happen,” he said with a broad and insincere smile.

  If only it were that easy.

  Chapter 39

  Gerry Buehler had a bad feeling about this. Detective Kennedy said the questioning was routine, that Buehler was not a suspect in April Cassidy’s murder. Buehler wasn’t sure he believed him. Buehler and Kennedy had been talking for the last twenty minutes, since Town and Country Pharmacy closed, Gerry growing more uncomfortable as each minute passed. He shifted in his seat, crossed and uncrossed his legs, and scratched his nose and cleared his throat. Needing a break, Gerry rose from his chair and walked to the water cooler.

  “You sure I can’t get you anything to drink, Detective?” Gerry said in an unsteady voice.

  “Naw. I’m fine. Thanks anyway.”

  Buehler waited what seemed like an eternity for his empty water bottle to fill, struggling the entire time to control his anxiety. Even though the air conditioner was working fine, Gerry felt warm and claustrophobic in his back office. He hoped in vain it did not show.

  The moment Buehler returned to the small, wood desk he shared with Kennedy, the questioning resumed.

  “Let’s go over it again, Gerry. You say you were at work from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. last Saturday and Sunday and then went straight home each evening. What’d you do from Saturday night to when you got to work on Sunday?” Kennedy said with a sharp edge to his voice.

  “Well, let’s see. Saturday night I ate dinner and then watched about an hour of TV. Nothing good was on so I read a book in bed until I fell asleep, I think around 10:30. I woke up Sunday morning at six, worked with some free weights at home till around eight, and then ran errands before coming to work.”

  Buehler had just gotten the words out of his mouth when Kennedy countered in a forceful manner, “Anyone recognize you while you were running those errands? Did you pay cash, use a check or a credit card?”

  “I paid cash and uhh, I didn’t know any of the clerks so I doubt they recognized me.”

  “Where exactly did you go between eight and ten, Gerry?”

  “I bought some groceries at C-Town across the street, dropped off my dry cleaning, and picked up a few CD’s.”

  The interrogation continued in rapid fire bursts for twenty more minutes, Gerry feeling more and more closed in and desperate with each exchange. His breathing became rapid and shallow and his pulse fast and thready. By the time the interview was drawing to a close, Gerry was in the throes of a full-blown panic attack. Kennedy looked over at him and cocked his head, and then shook it back and forth with disgust; he had seen his share of a suspect’s fake illness to postpone crucial interrogations. Kennedy hung around long enough to confirm the attack’s authenticity and allow it time to pass. The last thing he needed was for some weak-kneed, sissy-ass suspect to injure himself and then sue him and the department. That wouldn’t help Kennedy in his quest to move beyond Detective First Grade. When he was sure twinkle toes Buehler had recovered from his episode, Kennedy gathered up his notes, grumbled a goodbye, and walked out without looking back.

  After Kennedy left and Buehler regained his composure, Buehler replayed the interview in his head. The interrogation had established that at the time of April’s death, Gerry’s alibi was he was sleeping alone and then lifting weights by himself at home. He admitted being devastated by the break up with April and that as far as he could tell, April broke the relationship off because he disapproved of her lifestyle, which she had no intention of changing. His lack of a solid alibi and intense feelings for April made him suspicious, but of course didn’t constitute evidence against him. Kennedy asked a lot of off-the-wall questions about what medications he stocked. He also reviewed all of Gerry’s purchase records from the last six months. That had gone well, because as far as Gerry could tell, Kennedy was satisfied by what he found—or didn’t find—in the records.

  But two things towards the end of the interview had Gerry worried. First, Kennedy asked him about the rape charges filed against him in college. The charges were later dropped, but without a doubt, it put him in a bad light. Second, Kennedy asked if he knew April was pregnant. Not knowing how to react, he feigned ignorance. Kennedy seemed to believe him, but there was no way to know for sure, and no way to know why Kennedy asked about it to begin with. Thinking about all of this made Buehler very nervous again. He could feel the sweat building up under his arms and on his palms. He was sure now he had blown the interview and that the police would be back for him.

  Gerry ground his teeth and wringed his sopping hands. He tried to hold it all together, to keep the room from closing in on him again. This was getting a lot more complicated than he ever expected it would. When all this began some time ago, Gerry had been assured nothing could go wrong. They insisted no one would ever find out, no one would ever be hurt by it. Those things had proven untrue.

  Chapter 40

  I hit END on my cell phone as I cruised north in the Firebird. Kennedy and I had just finished trading stories about the last
few hours. He was as pissed as the rest of us that the spineless one, Governor George Spatick, brought the Feds in on the case—our case. How were the DMC and I going to prove ourselves with the Feds involved? Truth be told, neither of us was surprised by the move—Spatick was a political leech and saw this as a perfect opportunity to both cover his ass and suck up to Washington by letting them take the credit when we finally bust this psycho. Spatick was well connected and rumored to be positioning himself for a run at the presidency. Currying favor with our current Commander-In-Chief, Barack Obama, could only help Spatick’s cause.

  Kev’s night was more productive and a lot more fun than mine had been. He spent forty-five minutes rattling our pharmacist friend Gerry Buehler’s cage—with impressive results. Buehler admitted to still having the hots for April and to not having much of an alibi at the time of her murder. He also got more and more anxious as the interview went on, culminating in a good old fashioned, pee-in-your-pants, heart-in-your-throat panic attack when Kev dropped our two bombs on him. The dropped rape charge in college got him rattled, and the fact that we knew April was pregnant when she died, led to a sorry attempt on Buehler’s part to pretend he didn’t know and a bad case of the sweats. That set off all sorts of bells and whistles for Kev and me and moved Buehler squarely onto our list of suspects.

  Most of the pharmacists I'd come across over the years had one thing in common: they wished they were MDs. For some, their grades were really good but not quite good enough to make the cut. Others were scared off by the time commitment it takes to become a practicing MD. Still others didn't have the stomach for it. Buehler may not have had medical training per se, but he was very bright. And a pharmacist would be the perfect person to create a super-concentrated form of Boxin, such as what killed our victims. As for possibly trying to induce an abortion in April Cassidy, or what he could do to keep the young fetus alive, it was all conjecture. Maybe the killer wasn’t trying to do either of these things. Or maybe somebody like Buehler, who knew pharmacology inside and out and could use the internet or text books to fill in gaps in his medical knowledge, committed these crimes. The big question with Buehler wasn’t could he have committed these crimes; he certainly could have, the big question was did he have the stomach for it? He had gone into a full-blown panic attack when Kennedy merely questioned him. It didn’t seem likely that he could handle carrying out something as gruesome as this. But then again, the real sociopaths were often the ones you’d least expect. We’d have to delve a lot deeper into Buehler and also see if anything tied him to Rakel Ingi and Tracey Lin.

  After meeting with the pharmacist, Kennedy struck pay dirt again, tapping into interesting news regarding our dearly departed au pair. It seemed the young lady was not only pregnant, but she had skipped out rather suddenly after only three months of her au pair duties with a family in Greenwich, Connecticut. Kev was sure the two facts were related and even had it from a credible source that the baby was her host father’s. I was cruising north on the Hutchinson Parkway just south of White Plains when our conversation wrapped up. I decided to pay our newest suspect a visit.

  Brad Kimball lived in the backcountry section of Greenwich; his 4,200 square foot, distressed-brick, contemporary home occupied the front third of a three-acre parcel. The home was Kimball’s latest acquisition from a supposedly high-powered career as an investment banker with Salomon Smith Barney. We knew better. It turned out Kimball was just the latest family member to make a career out of being a white-gloved con artist. Phony airline and hospital acquisitions were the most recent in a series of scams he had run to bilk attorneys and physicians out of six-figure sums. A pathological liar who could charm the skin off a snake, he and his family moved often to stay one step ahead of those he was indebted to. Given the circumstances, he made an excellent suspect, and after our investigation was all over, he was someone the FBI would take pleasure sinking their teeth into a bit farther.

  “With all due respect, Detective, what are you doing at my home, unannounced, at this late hour? Isn’t Greenwich about twenty miles north of your jurisdiction?” Kimball began to close the door on me. I caught it with my hand and pressed on.

  “It is, sir, but I have some questions about an au pair you employed who was recently killed in the city. I know she left your family abruptly after discovering she was pregnant. I can come back in the morning to discuss this with your wife instead, if you’d prefer?”

  Kimball pulled the door back, anger written all over his face. “That won’t be necessary, Detective…?”

  “Ravello.”

  “Come right this way, Detective Ravello.”

  Predictably, Kimball’s disposition changed dramatically. He now oozed charm, attentiveness, and refinement as I stepped into the foyer, an imposing white spiral staircase in front of me and a sunken living room with a seventy-two inch flat screen TV off to my left. We walked to the right down a long hallway, skirted the edge of an open style kitchen with black speckled granite counter tops, and entered a room a few doors down on the right. Kimball’s study contained a large mahogany desk in front of floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall built in bookcases. The shelves were filled with an assortment of banking and legal books as well as collections of the classics, ranging from Poe and Shelley to Emerson and Thoreau.

  We chatted for thirty-five minutes, he sipping twenty-two-year-old cognac and me polishing off a rum and coke—minus the rum. He explained how wonderful Rakel had been with the children, until strange behavior on her part led to the discovery of a drug problem and her subsequent termination. In order to save face for Erika and leave employment opportunities elsewhere open to her, Mr. Kimball had agreed to keep the reason for her leaving confidential, until now that is. Every part of the story fit together like the final pieces in an elaborate puzzle. Each aspect of the story was relayed in a nonchalant, it is what it is, manner that seemed unrehearsed. Kimball was the consummate professional.

  It was up to me now to find the inconsistencies in his story and peel back the facades Kimball hid behind. I had a hunch the unmasked Kimball would take us far in the investigation, maybe right back to the beginning, and end, of the case. I hoped I was up to the task at hand—lives depended on it, as did my job, and maybe even my marriage.

  Chapter 41

  The Giver smiled a sly smile as he looked through his notes on the computer. He knew that Ravello didn’t have a clue who he was or why he was killing these women. He had everyone fooled. It had been that way for as long as he could remember. The Giver could project whatever image he needed to at any given moment in order to blend in. He could be erudite and refined, sweet and All-American, a studious and concerned professional or a sadistic brute. Hollywood never had a leading man who possessed his depth or range. He had even started volunteering at a local nursing home. That performance was only a few hours a week, but it allowed him to observe one of his new prospects.

  This was oh so delicious for him in so many ways. He got off on terrorizing, mutilating, and killing these women, each a lovely little reminder of his own mother. Obliterating her again and again brought him deep satisfaction and an inner peace that otherwise eluded him.

  The Giver also relished stumping Doctor Detective Ravello, the pitiful, idealistic fool. He, his cronies, and the FBI scurried about like lab mice in a dynamic maze of The Giver’s own design. They bumped into the maze’s ever shifting walls, fought among themselves about what directions to take and who was in charge, and scampered down long, winding, and poorly lit corridors to predictable dead ends. They did all this in the quest to know him, to find him. And he laughed deeply and at great length as the drama unfolded. The best part of it all? Why, his work of course. His humanity-altering work was the food and wine that sustained him each and every day. All of these other elements were but intermezzos and divertimenti. They provided short, lighthearted respites from his demanding work. They refreshed his mind while cleansing his palate in preparation for the next course.

  The Giver pulled hi
s mind back to the task before him, bringing an end to his musings and daydreaming. He read through the profiles he created on six additional women. Who would help him further his work? There was precious little time left and but a few more courses to be served. Who would he honor with the next seat at his banquet?

  Chapter 42

  I sat at a pockmarked, small, brown wooden table, Johnny “Knuckles” Briganti across from me. Bright overhead lights hung from the center of the ceiling and provided a small circle of intense illumination around us. Beyond the circle the small, gray cinder-block room was dark and ill defined. We had been at it about an hour, Briganti holding up well despite the questionable decision on his part to not have counsel present. I had gone easy on Briganti up to this point, trying to lull him into letting his guard down. My approach was about to change.

  “You really don’t expect me to believe you had nothing to do with April Cassidy’s death? We know she was pregnant with your baby and you wanted no part of it. Just come clean on the murder. Maybe there were extenuating circumstances. We’ll see what the DA can do for you.”

  “You don’t have shit on me ʼcause I didn’t have anything to do with the stripper’s death. Hell, I never even fucked her. We got rules against that kinda stuff at the club,” Briganti said as he leaned forward on the table and sneered at me.

  “I know you do, Johnny. That’s why when April became pregnant, you pressured her to have an abortion—you couldn’t let her or that baby stand in the way of your getting ahead in the Tramboli crime family. In fact, we’ve learned that after you bumped April off, Tony showed his appreciation by making you his newest capo.”