Storm Demon

by Gregory Lamberson

  Here it comes. “I didn’t trust her, so I went to her apartment and broke up with her.”

  “Why didn’t you trust her?”

  “She just didn’t seem trustworthy. She was always excusing herself to make calls. She said they were for her PR clients, but I never saw any evidence that she even was a publicist.”

  “How did she take the news?”

  “She got angry. I didn’t care.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Is that where your amnesia comes into play?”

  “Yes.”

  The Missing Persons detectives looked at each other.

  “Do you remember leaving Miss Du Pre’s apartment?” Setlik said.

  “No.”

  “Do you remember anything from the last year before you became aware of your surroundings yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “Dawn Du Pre and Ramera Evans were the same person. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “And Ramera Evans was Prince Malachai’s squeeze. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “We have evidence that you went into her apartment the last time you were seen but no evidence you ever left it,” Knopf said. “How do you explain that?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Did you kill Malachai and Evans?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know if you can’t remember anything?”

  “I know I didn’t kill anyone. Why would I? I broke up with her, not the other way around.”

  “Some sixty corpses turned up all over the city the same week you disappeared. Those we were able to identify were dealers and addicts. Their bodies were packed with sawdust, their fingertips and toes were cut off, and their teeth were pulled out to make identifying them hard, but we used DNA testing. In every single case, the vic was shot in the head with a high-powered rifle.”

  “I’ve never owned a rifle.”

  “Let’s review what we have. You were on the Black Magic Task Force and believed Prince Malachai was behind the Black Magic epidemic. You were dating Dawn Du Pre who was really Ramera Evans, who was banging Malachai, the target of your investigation. You say you broke up with Du Pre, and then you disappeared without a trace.

  “While you were MIA, someone put down sixty scarecrows, many of them dealers in Malachai’s operation. Malachai and Du Pre turned up dead, and you stay missing for almost a year. Then you turn up out of the blue, and you don’t remember anything that happened after you broke up with Du Pre. You don’t remember anything from the last nine months of your life.”

  “It’s pretty crazy,” Edgar said.

  7

  Jake exited his office and stood before Carrie. “I have a task for you.”

  Carrie looked up from her desk. “Good. I need a break from these numbers.”

  “Dig up everything you can on Eden, Inc.”

  She gave him a disbelieving look. “You mean our landlord who gives you such a sweet deal? Did you come back just to make us homeless?”

  “We’re not going to be put out on the curb. I just need some deep background.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’ll be back in a few hours.” Jake left the suite and took the stairs down to the lobby, where he opened the front doors and breathed in warm air. Sunlight caused him to squint at the New York Edition Hotel, formerly the Met Life Tower, looming above him.

  With his hands in the pockets of his slacks, he walked west, one pedestrian of many. As he passed Madison Avenue he didn’t even glance at the Tower on his right; instead he studied the Flatiron Building straight ahead. The building had always been a curiosity for him because of its unique architecture, and it had become part of the landscape he saw daily since opening his business in the neighborhood. Unlike the Tower, the Flatiron’s chief attraction, aside from its design, was its old New York feeling.

  Jake bought a pretzel from a street vendor and crossed Broadway, which sliced the city grid at a forty-five-degree angle, and entered the building’s shadow. An aluminum skeleton supported a construction awning along the building’s eastern face, and construction workers jackhammered the sidewalk. He wandered over to the northern corner of the triangular island the landmark building stood upon. Chewing on the pretzel, he watched the busy traffic at the intersection for several seconds and then turned to face the building’s entrance. Smokers lingered outside, and other people passed through the glass entrance in both directions.

  The hair on the back of his neck did not stand on end. In fact, he experienced no physical reaction at all to the building. His gut told him Laurel was not inside. Finishing the pretzel, he crossed Fifth Avenue and continued west.

  Maria and Bernie sat in their Cavalier, which Maria had directed him to park on Thirty-fourth Street at the corner of Ninth Avenue. Looking past him, she stared at the awning extending from the entrance to 356 West Thirty-fourth Street. Sloane House had once been the largest residential YMCA in the country before being converted into condos. The uniformed doorman stood at attention.

  “Doorman service,” she said with a disgusted tone.

  “What are we doing here?” Bernie said.

  “Alice Morton ordered those hoppers killed and you know it.”

  Bernie pushed his glasses up his nose. “I also know there’s no evidence to prove it; there were no witnesses. So let’s head to the medical examiner’s office, get a statement, and go back to the squad room and fill out our preliminary report.”

  The doorman opened the door, and two people exited: a black woman and a little girl.

  Maria’s stomach clenched. “That’s her. That’s Shana.”

  Papa Joe’s daughter.

  Bernie sighed. “At least she’s got a nanny.”

  The nanny and Shana crossed the street, passing right before the unmarked police car.

  Maria stared straight ahead as Shana passed her so as not to be seen. Then she looked into the side mirror as the nanny hailed a taxi behind them. “Follow them.”

  Bernie scrunched up his face. “I know you care about the kid, but how does this fit into our investigation?”

  “Just do it.”

  Bernie started the engine just as the taxi passed them, then pulled into traffic and made a U-turn. “This is highly irregular.”

  “We’re not going to get into trouble.”

  “I’m not convinced.” He followed them to Tenth Avenue and made a left turn.

  Maria focused on the back of the yellow taxi.

  Three minutes and four blocks later, the taxi pulled over and discharged its passengers. As soon as the taxi sped away, Bernie took its spot. The nanny led Shana into

  Chelsea Park.

  “I think the nanny’s kosher,” Bernie said. “I don’t see her peddling rock in that playground.”

  Maria got out. “Park the car and find me.” She closed the door before Bernie could protest. Crossing the street, she circled the fence protecting the park.

  The nanny sat on a bench, and Shana ran over to the playground and joined other children in a sandbox.

  Bernie walked up to Maria. “Cops are supposed to scare away people who do what you’re doing.”

  “You see where the nanny’s sitting? When I get over to the other side of the fence, you distract her. All I need is thirty seconds.”

  “You’re pushing the boundaries of our partnership.”

  Ignoring him, Maria followed the fence to the other side, which afforded her a closer view of Shana. The nanny watched the children play, looking bored. Bernie stood twenty feet behind her, his lack of enthusiasm radiating from him. Maria curled her fingers around the chain-link fence and nodded.

  Bernie circled the bench, then pointed beneath it and spoke to the nanny. He made a show of crouching and reaching beneath it.

  “Shana!”

  Shana looked around while Bernie stood, blocking the nanny’s view of her charge.

  “Over here!”

  Shana
looked straight at Maria. Behind her, Bernie held paper money before the nanny.

  “Come here quick.”

  Shana glanced over her shoulder at the nanny.

  “Please come here.”

  Biting her lip, Shana ran over to the fence.

  Maria crouched so the girl blocked her from the nanny’s view. “Do you remember me?”

  “Maria.”

  “That’s right. Are you okay?”

  Shana nodded.

  “I know you had a birthday a few weeks ago. I’m sorry I couldn’t call you.”

  “That’s okay.”

  Maria stuck a card through the fence.

  Shana took it.

  “That’s my business card. It’s got my number on it. Keep it safe. Don’t let anyone see it. But if you ever need anything at all, call me, okay?”

  Shana nodded again.

  “Now put it in your pocket or your sock, and don’t forget to hide it someplace safe, like far under your mattress.”

  “Shana!”

  Shana looked over her shoulder at the nanny, who stood beside Bernie. She ran to her without saying good-bye to Maria.

  On the fifth floor of One Police Plaza, located on Park Row, Edgar opened a door labeled Major Crimes Unit.

  Inside the office, a fiftyish woman looked up from her desk. “Can I help you?”

  “Detective Hopkins to see Lieutenant Geoghegan.”

  “Just a moment.” The woman picked up a phone and pressed a button. “Detective Hopkins is here.” She listened for a moment, then hung up. “He says to have a seat. He’ll be right with you.”

  “Thanks.” Edgar sat in a wooden armchair near a water cooler.

  A few minutes later, Ted Geoghegan, a lieutenant with MCU, exited his office wearing a short-sleeved white shirt with a too wide striped tie. He was short, and his military crew cut gave off a conservative 1950s vibe. “Come on, Hopkins.”

  Edgar followed the lieutenant down a side hall where Geoghegan stopped and opened a door. Edgar entered the interview room, and Geoghegan closed the door and sat on the far end of a metal table. Edgar sat on the remaining chair.

  “Can I get you anything?” Geoghegan said. “Water?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “This interview’s being recorded.”

  “I know the drill. I’ve already been through it with Missing Persons and IAB today, and I’ve conducted an interview or two in my time.”

  Geoghegan announced the date for the benefit of the recording device. “Subject is Hopkins, Edgar, detective second grade with the Special Homicide Task Force based in Detective Bureau Manhattan Midtown South. Conducting the interview is Geoghegan, Theodore, lieutenant, MCU.” He glared at Edgar. “Where have you been the last nine months?”

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “I’ve read the transcript of your interview with Missing Persons this morning. Are you maintaining you have no memory of the last nine months?”

  “That’s right.”

  Geoghegan smiled. “You used to be partners with Jake Helman.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And yet you interviewed him when he was a possible suspect in the murder of the Cipher. Not exactly by the book, was it?”

  Edgar had done more than sit in on Jake’s interview; he had destroyed video security footage that showed Jake entering Marc Gorman’s apartment building, then departing after the serial killer’s execution. “He wasn’t my partner then, he’d already resigned from the force, and I didn’t conduct the interview. My partner Maria Vasquez did.”

  “It was irregular as shit.”

  “Talk to Lieutenant Mauceri about that. I was the primary on the Cipher case, and Vasquez caught the DOA call before we knew who Gorman was. She was new to the unit. I just sat in on the interview to make sure she covered every base.”

  Geoghegan’s smile tightened. “Helman resigned rather than take a simple drug test, and you disappeared while running down a wannabe drug lord. Are you sure Helman didn’t drag you down with him?”

  “My disappearance had nothing to do with Jake.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know Jake.”

  “Did he have anything to do with your reappearance?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know Jake.”

  “You must have a theory about what happened to you.”

  “I was working on two big cases: Black Magic and the Machete Massacres. When they converged, I got close to figuring out who was behind them.”

  “So whoever was behind Magic and those massacres had you kidnapped?”

  “I’m not about to guess, but that’s a pretty solid theory.”

  “Except we know Prince Malachai was the big mastermind behind those operations, and he got killed along with your girlfriend.”

  “Maybe she was in on it, too. We both know that Malachai was just one link on a long chain.”

  “Vasquez was your partner when you were conducting these investigations.”

  “I hope she still is.”

  Geoghegan gave him a long prosecutorial look. “That’s up in the air. A lot of questions need to be answered.”

  “We’ll see what the union says about that.”

  The older man chuckled. “Yeah? I can’t wait to hear it. Let’s get back to Vasquez. I’ve read her reports at the time of your disappearance. She never mentioned anything about you closing in on the head of the Black Magic ring.”

  “That was almost a year ago. I can’t remember anything since then, and I can’t remember every discussion me and Vasquez had at the time.”

  “The department has your notes. They’re notably thin.”

  “I don’t waste a whole lot of time writing down speculation.”

  “Do you expect me to believe you had no idea your girlfriend was also doing Malachai? That the three of you weren’t working together?”

  Shit, Edgar thought. “I figured it out when I confronted her. That’s why I broke up with her.”

  Geoghegan stood and circled his desk. “An NYPD detective investigating drug-related murders disappears for almost a year and then mysteriously shows up with no memory of what happened to him or where he was. This isn’t a Missing Persons case. It isn’t an Internal Affairs case. It’s a Major Crime Unit case, and I’m making it mine.”

  Edgar rose. He stood a full foot taller than Geoghegan. “Good, because I want to know what happened to me more than anyone else.”

  “You’re on indefinite suspension pending a full investigation. I want you to get a physical today, and I mean a complete workup, including genetic drug testing and psychological evaluation. If you’re hiding something we’ll find it.”

  8

  Walking along Eleventh Avenue, Jake observed police officers directing traffic onto Thirty-third Street because Thirty-fourth had been closed off.

  As he drew closer to the Javits Center, the voices of young women standing at the corner and along a raised walkway grew louder. “Thank you for coming to World Book Expo. If you already have a ticket or a wristband, go to the first two sets of doors. If you do not have a ticket or a wristband, walk to the far doors. Remember to keep reading.”

  Jake merged into a group moving at a snail’s pace and realized he had joined a line to get in. Over a hundred people stood ahead of him. He caught a mixture of aromas: hot dogs, shish kebabs, and sweat.

  “Thank you for coming to World Book Expo . . .”

  Inside the convention center, Jake gazed at enormous banners draped from the ceiling, some of them thirty feet high, trumpeting books and publishers. One banner dwarfed the others; it was forty-feet high, and a giant Lilian Kane stared down at him, smiling with one hand on her hip and her latest book in the other: Love Knows No Lust.

  Standing in one of two dozen lines to buy tickets, he found himself admiring Kane’s figure and wondered how much photo manipulating the fifty-nine-year-old’s image had required for the display. Th
e caption on the banner read, Lilian Kane presents her most passionate novel yet. Exclusively from Eternity Books.

  Twenty minutes later Jake purchased a day pass for sixty dollars.

  “That’s more than I expected,” he said to the ticket agent, a young woman with long dark hair and large frame glasses.

  “You’ll walk out of here with that much in free books,” she said.

  It took him five minutes to locate the entrance to the show, and then he entered a different world. Five thousand publishers and book vendors had set up shop—some with simple booths but many with elaborate setups involving portable living rooms, miniature libraries, and re-creations of settings from books. Sales reps greeted readers and industry professionals and handed out business cards, catalogs, and bookmarks. Patrons stood in line to purchase books from publishers and have them signed by authors.

  Jake saw books of every type on display, and he couldn’t believe the number of zombie novels with similar titles and covers. He felt certain that none of them referenced Black Magic, vodou, or the demon Kalfu. Reps smiled at him to get his attention; at first he smiled back and waved no thanks, but as his first hour in the center drew to a close he learned to ignore them.

  He spent another half hour wandering the aisles. A new hardcover caused him to chuckle: Where’s Old Nick? The Life and Times of Nicholas Tower. Jake picked up a copy and leafed through it. He had seen some of the photos before, but many were new to him: Nicholas Tower at construction sites and ribbon-cutting ceremonies decades before he went into self-imposed exile in the Tower. Near the end of the book, a two-page spread showed a collage of Anti-Cloning Creationist League members protesting outside the Tower.

  “That’s expected to be one of our best sellers this year,” an attractive saleswoman with bright teeth said.

  “Old Nick keeps making money,” Jake said, returning the book to its display.

  He rejoined the mass of people walking the expo and saw a horizontal banner promoting Lilian Kane, Eternity Books, and Love Knows No Lust. At last he reached the wall at the far end of the mammoth convention center, where dozens of authors sat side by side on raised desks, signing books for anxious readers. He passed the lines at a slow speed, glancing at each author, searching for the Queen of Romance.