The Screaming Room

by Thomas O'Callaghan

  The privacy glass was still down. Befuddlement flooded Eddie’s face.

  Chapter 73

  Driscoll stepped outside the library. He hadn’t found her.

  On his trek there, he noted a few shops around the store she may have gone to. The Beanery on Tenth was a possibility. If she’s the library type, she’d probably like the atmosphere of a trendy coffee shop, he reasoned. It was also a type of place where someone wouldn’t feel uncomfortable eating alone.

  Driscoll checked his watch. Ten minutes to go. What the hell, it was on the way back.

  The Beanery was just as he imagined. A crowd of people, median age being about twenty-five, was sitting at small tables sipping a variety beverages; some eating lunch. A refrigerated display offered an array of pastry items along with an assortment of salads and sandwiches.

  Driscoll didn’t know if it was a chain. It reminded him of a Dean & DeLuca on University, north of Washington Square Park.

  A quick scan revealed no one clad in PC Haven red. And the only person with red hair was male.

  She was due back soon. Although he could have used a quick bite, he needed to head for the store.

  His cell phone sounded as he was about to exit.

  “Driscoll, here.”

  The voice of Lieutenant Matthew White at NYPD’s Computer Investigation and Tech Unit sounded in his ear. This must be important. He took a seat at an empty table, listening to what White had to say.

  “We got inside the four hard drives, Lieutenant. Those belonging to the German and Chinese victims that had been forwarded to us from Interpol along with the two from our stateside departed. We’re gonna dig deeper, but I wanted to let you know we got in and give you a heads-up on where we’re at. We had to have a translator involved. That slowed us down a bit. I’ll start with the overseas drives. They tried to erase the histories of Web sites visited, but their Favorites lists offer a quick link to the twin’s TwoNaughtyFreaks Web site. There doesn’t appear to be any way for contact online. The twins have a phone number, 858-734-6523, flashing across the top of the site in red. I suppose that’s how they’re hooking up?”

  “You got it. They’re using a disposable.”

  “Sex trafficking in the twenty-first century.”

  “We show them having links to a number of Asian and European online outlets that offer all sorts of sexual enhancement gadgetry. We’re talkin’ some really weird stuff. Redefines kinky. No records of any purchases, though.”

  “I’m sure that if they bought anything they’d pay cash at a retailer. They probably did their window-shopping online. These two have handles?”

  “HankySpankyOne and LazyOldFreak.”

  “Original,” said the Lieutenant.

  “Moving on to Francis Palmer. He was a big fan of freshwater fly fishing, according to the Web sites he frequented. His Favorites List supports that too. He paid his bills through South Texas online banking. He did a fair amount of shopping over the Internet. Had accounts at Amazon, Best Buy, and a number of others that appear innocuous enough. We’ll know more when we get a complete list of his purchases. Mr. Palmer did have a flip side.”

  Driscoll leaned his head forward as though his action would raise the volume. Perhaps he’d been wrong about a Web site designer knowing how to cover his ass. Or the guy could have been plain stupid.

  “Seems Palmer made room on his Favorites List for other pleasures. He was a big fan of Nero. Not Nero Wolfe, mind you. Nero, as in Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, aka, emperor of Rome. And from the looks of what Palmer tapped into, Nero had a passion for orgies. According to his findings, at Nero’s first-century hothouse, nothing was off-limits. Didn’t matter if you were heterosexual, bi-sexual, or had a hankering for the younger set, which is where the emperor reportedly leaned. Palmer was fixated on a figure from Greek mythology. Priapus, to his friends. A well-hung fertility god. Here’s Priapus talking. Palmer had highlighted it in red. ‘I warn you, my lad, you will be sodomized; you, my girl, I shall futter; for the thief who is bearded, a third punishment remains. If I do seize you, you shall be so stretched that you will think your anus never had any wrinkles.”

  “Quite a guy.”

  “Palmer?”

  “Priapus.”

  “You ready for Palmer’s handle?”

  “Ready.”

  “AwwShucks.”

  Margaret said we’d find him in Disney. “AwwShucks as in Winnie the Pooh land?”

  “’Fraid I’m not much of a fan of the Pooh Man. That Barney guy neither. On to the USA. I’m sorry to report that Miss Shewster wasn’t much of a computer fan. No collection of hero worship like Palmer. There was an unopened e-mail in her mailbox. It was from her father. He wanted to know if she needed money, how things were going in therapy, and if she was still going to the meetings. Made me wonder if she was in some sort of recovery program.”

  “She shoulda been.”

  “Not much else. No frequent visits to any particular dotcom. And a very short list of favorites. Three. Victoria’s Secret. Tiffany & Company. I’ll let you tell me which site held the third spot.”

  “TwoNaughtyFreaks.”

  “On the mark as usual, Lieutenant.”

  “Make my day. Tell me Abigail Shewster had an exotic Internet handle.”

  “Not by my definition of exotic. It was GwennyPenny.”

  Driscoll ended the call, checked his watch, and was about to exit the café when his beeper sounded. Unpocketing it, he discovered it was Aligante. Retrieving his cell phone, he accessed her from his address book and hit SEND.

  In a matter of seconds, she was on the line.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Just around the corner on Tenth.”

  “I tried to reach you on your cell. What’s wrong with your call waiting?”

  “Damn! I was on the line with Lieutenant White from Tech Support. He had a ton of info for me. I guess I got too engrossed in the call to hear the beep. Why? What’s happening?”

  “Plenty.”

  Chapter 74

  Driscoll was seated at a table in the back room of PC Haven. Across from him was an extremely elated Rita Crenshaw who, upon his arrival, had announced she was going be a gazillionaire.

  It took the Lieutenant a couple of minutes to get her to focus and stop saying “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” When he finally succeeded, he told her he was aware she had an exciting afternoon and asked her for her patience while he asked her some questions.

  “Fire away!” she said.

  “Miss Crenshaw, would you mind if I called you Rita? I don’t want this to feel like an interrogation.” The Lieutenant needed her to feel comfortable speaking with the police. God only knew what Shewster led her to believe.

  “Sure. You can call me Rita.”

  “Thank you, Rita. I’d like to know what brought you and Mr. Shewster together.”

  “I spotted the picture of that Angus fella in the newspaper. Three million dollars is a lot of money! I wasn’t sure what to do at first, but considering the guy was wanted for murder, I called the police. After that, I called the eight-hundred number in the paper. Some guy. I never did get his name. Anyway, he seemed very interested and asked me first for my full name and phone number and then asked why I was calling. I described the guy, Angus, who had come in to buy a laptop computer and that I checked him out.”

  Her attention was drawn over Driscoll’s shoulder. When the Lieutenant turned, he saw another young lady, in a PC Haven bib, standing outside the room, waving to Rita while yelling, “Way ta go! Way ta go!” Rita responded by shouting “Whoo-hoo!” He was glad the interruption didn’t prompt another round of “Oh, my God!”

  His eyes found hers.

  “That’s Cindy. She’s my backup.”

  “Sounds very happy for you.”

  “She’s a sweetie!”

  “Seems everyone is nice around here. Please, go on.”

  “Okay. Getting back to the guy who took my call. I told him the cu
stomer was a dead ringer for the photo on the front page of the Daily News. Except for the color of his hair. Even with the hood the photo looks like someone with light hair. I told him aside from that, he’s the guy! Then I told him he paid seventeen hundred in cash for the notebook. His voice perked up. He sounded even more interested. Anyway, he read back my name and asked if the number I gave him was a work number. I told him it was. He then asked if it would be okay to call me at work if he needed to. I said yes, ’cause my supervisor, Adeline, is okay with that.”

  I’ll bet, thought Driscoll.

  “Five minutes later she tells me I have a phone call. I says, ‘Nah. Nobody works that fast.’ But guess what?”

  “He called you back.”

  “Not him, but another man who said he’d been given the message. ‘Is this Rita Crenshaw?’ he asked. I nodded. Go figure! I was excited. He asked again. And I blurted, ‘Yes! Yes!’ He asked me where I worked. I gave him the address. He then asked if I would meet him on the corner of Tenth and Fifty-sixth, in front of the Duane Reade. Said something about not having a permit to drive a stretch limo on West Fifty-seventh. Who knows? But when he said ‘limo,’ I said, ‘Step aside, Britney.’ It wasn’t like he was someone I met on the Internet. It is broad daylight. I figured a guy who could afford to shell out three million wouldn’t be driving a Chevy.”

  Driscoll felt offended, but quickly dismissed it.

  “I was told he could be here in five minutes. Yikes! I almost asked him if he’d have the money with him. I don’t think I did. At least I hope not. So, before I knew it, I had switched lunch with a coworker and was on my way to meet him.”

  “Did you tell your supervisor about it?”

  “I think so,” she grew silent and began counting on her fingers.

  Driscoll watched. It appeared she was going over some sort of checklist, perhaps about the events that had rapidly taken place. She leaned in, conspiratorially. Driscoll noted she was blushing. “I don’t want to sound disrespectful,” she said. “Adeline’s a sweetheart and I believe I told her I was meeting someone for lunch in front of the drugstore. But, between you and me, if you looked in her right ear, you’d see out her left.”

  “The men who you spoke to, what’d they sound like?”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  “Did they sound young? Old?”

  “I know where you’re going. It wasn’t Mr. Shewster I spoke to during either phone call. They were all business when they spoke. Malcolm’s more of a codger.”

  Oh, boy!

  Thirty-five minutes later, after he had thanked Rita for detailing everything she remembered about both her likely encounter with Angus and her entire conversation with Shewster, Driscoll rejoined Margaret and Thomlinson. They informed him that Forensics had arrived to sweep the place and that a team of officers was going door to door seeking any further information on Angus. He headed for the door.

  Two questions gnawed at him: Why hadn’t he gotten a call from Danny O’Brien telling him that their electronic shadow had followed the Shewster vehicle when it ventured out for the rendezvous? And why was Shewster so fixated on the PC Haven receipt for Angus’s computer purchase?

  Just before he got his foot out the door, Adeline brushed past him. He’d been a cop for a long time. She was either taking something out of his breast pocket or putting something in. Because her awkward sleight of hand hadn’t been missed by Margaret, Driscoll, as a courtesy, would wait until he was alone to see what the lady had passed him. He believed he knew what he’d find. Adeline was no artful dodger. The Lieutenant never kept anything in that pocket. Until now.

  Chapter 75

  When Driscoll returned to his office, there were three messages from Danny O’Brien, the TARU technician, staring up at him from his desk. He picked up the phone and called.

  “TARU,” a voice answered. The Lieutenant recognized it as that of Steve Halley.

  “They finally let you out from under, Steve?”

  “We all need a breath of air now and again, Lieutenant. Even short timers like me. I take it when it’s offered. I’m awful sorry to hear about your wife. You holding up okay? How’s your sister?”

  “She and I are fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “If you ever need another soul to turn to…”

  “I know. It’s nice to hear it.”

  “Hold the line. I know Danny’s been eager to talk to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  The Lieutenant had a great deal of respect for Halley. He’d lost a son to leukemia a dozen or so years back. After burying the boy, he went home and poured every drop of liquor on hand down the drain of the kitchen sink. His cabinet was well stocked. He rescued two lives that day. His and his wife’s. Bleak are the days of a whiskey widow. Bleaker are the nights of a mother who buries a child she bore. He no longer had Sean. But he’d be damned if he’d continue to steer his wife to an early grave.

  The booming of voice of Danny O’Brien sounded in the Lieutenant’s ear. “Hi, Lieutenant. I know you’ve got a long list of people to explain to. I want to help you do that. We followed the limousine down Fifth and into the park. According to the GPS tracking device, midway through the park, the vehicle stopped. Then sat there. We figured his car broke down or blew a tire. Though unlikely, he may have been meeting someone there. We sent an Aviation copter over the site. Couldn’t make out much through the cluster of trees. We had a blue and white enter from Central Park West and cruise through. Zip! No stationary car. But the GPS still had him sitting there. The patrol car continued through, then turned around, and circled back. Nada. But they reported a patch of rough road. A series of potholes, right about where we had the GPS sitting. We believe we know what happened. Although the unit wasn’t sighted at the scene, there are sewers on both sides of the roadway. We had the Environment Protection Agency dispatch a truck. They dredged both sewers, eventually finding the GPS in the northern drain.”

  “You got another unit? One with Krazy Glue?”

  “We’ve got the next best thing,” said O’Brien. “Sorry about—”

  “No need to apologize, Danny. Some guys have all the luck.”

  “And excellent timing.”

  “The guy’s crafty. I’ll give him that. But he hasn’t perfected the art of disappearing. Not yet.”

  Driscoll hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. One mystery had been unraveled. What Shewster was going to do with a PC Haven receipt still had the best of him.

  Chapter 76

  It was nearing three in the morning. All Angus heard was the tapping of keys and his sister’s snoring, which sounded, for the most part, like a muted motor with a rough idle. But her sudden guttural outbursts were annoying the hell out of him. Had he been in bed, he’d grind his heel into the fleshy part of her thigh. That shut her up in a hurry.

  Right now, though, he wasn’t in bed. He was pounding away on the notebook. He’d slept very little over the past week. His ass ached from its constant contact with the hard wooden stool he had placed next to the barrel that supported the laptop. His eyes hurt from peering into the dull luster of its twelve-inch screen. But he was on a mission, a tedious, time-consuming one that required intense concentration. Therefore, he would not, could not, tolerate her snoring. So he puckered his lips and let loose a high-pitched whistle every time his sister snorted like a wild boar that had its testicles shocked by a Taser.

  It always prompted the same response: “What? What is it? What?” with his sister nearly leaping from her skin.

  And it always worked, allowing him to return to the mundane and irksome task at hand. He had learned much about the Lieutenant over the course of the last seven days. But he was yet to find what he was looking for.

  Chapter 77

  “Jesus H. Christ! There it is again! Where the hell is that high-pitched whistling coming from?” Cassie grunted, eyes half open, spotting Angus quietly pecking away at the keys. A pencil behind his ear. A pad of paper at the ready. His gaze riveted to the screen.<
br />
  “Angus, didn’t ya hear that?”

  “What?”

  “That freakin’ whistle!”

  “I ain’t heard a thing. Go back to sleep, Lovee. You must be dreaming.”

  She muttered something intelligible, dislodged a wedgie, and let her head hit the pillow.

  Was I dreaming? Maybe.

  “We’re never gonna get back home,” Cassie whispered, huddled next to her brother in the last pew of the church. “Not to Carbondale. Not to the loft. They musta cloned that Driscoll guy. He shows up everywhere! The guy probably walks on water.”

  She looked around the church. There were a handful of visitors, some lighting candles, some standing before one of many statues, the rest seated. They all looked the same. Same height, same clothing, same sinister look on their face, skeleton-like. They were humming. “We’re running outta places, Angus. We’re gonna hafta move to another planet!”

  “If you’d like.”

  Huh? Why was he so polite and agreeable? “We might need another country.”

  “That’s a can-do.”

  “Yeah, right. Like we’re gonna be able to hail a taxi, say ‘JFK, please.’ You know what kinda security they got at airports these days? And the last time I looked, JFK was still in New York City! They probably got dogs there that look like Driscoll. We’re screwed, Angus. Unless Scotty can beam us up to the Starship Enterprise, we’re screwed.”

  “Look on the bright side. We have each other.”

  “Jesus, Angus, you’re creepin’ me out.”

  “Ya know what I always wanted to do when I grew up?” he whispered.

  “I got this one! Trade in your feathers and become a cowboy.”

  “Cute. You’re so adorable. I always wanted to become a millionaire, silly.”

  “Go on! They laid off security at Fort Knox?”

  “Lemme show ya. Hand me the phone.”