Buzz Killer

by Tom Straw

  “Know why they call surveillance being a fly on the wall? Because that’s what you attract with all this bullshit.” He lowered the volume by half but slid it back up a few minutes later when a CSU tech approached the detectives with a small plastic bottle.

  “I found this tucked away inside this.” The forensic technician displayed something in the flat of his gloved palm. Gunnar tried to zoom on the object but they huddled around it, blocking his angle. Whatever it was, the detectives agreed it was worth checking out. The lead took out his cell phone and slipped off one glove so he could dial.

  He identified himself and briefed the person on the other end where he was. “The Geek Squad found a slip of paper in an empty Advil bottle with a garbled bunch of numbers and letters. Can you run it through the db?”

  “He’s on to the Real Time Crime Center,” explained Gunnar. “They can crunch it through the database. Sometimes you get a hit on something useful like geo coordinates or a secret bank account. Sometimes it’s just somebody’s Powerball pick.”

  The lead detective held the slip of paper under a lamp and slowly read it off. “Set? ‘TRDS73##RWM*BC//KIQQ.’” When he recited it a second time for verification, Macie double-checked her notes. Gunnar, on the other hand, finished keying it into an encrypted text to CyberGauchito to run his own search.

  While they awaited the search results, Macie and Gunnar watched a replay of the video they had blacked out. They saw the hooker slip handcuffs onto the unsuspecting sex partner as her accomplices let themselves in and commenced a brutal interrogation. By midnight, neither Cody nor the NYPD had yet scored a hit on the alphanumeric code. A supervisor showed up in the apartment to report that, following a building and neighborhood canvass, there were no eyewitnesses to the home invasion or the abduction. “What did I tell you?” said Gunnar. “History.”

  Wild’s cell phone thrummed on the console beside her, and when she answered, she sat upright, on full alert. “When?” She checked the digital time code in the corner of the screen and nodded as she listened. “I’ll be right there.” She hung up and stood, bumping her head on the carpeted ceiling. If it bothered her, she didn’t let on. “Jackson Hall’s out of his coma.”

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  Dr. Edda met Macie and Gunnar at the elevator when they stepped off into the jail ward at Bellevue. As they cleared security, she presented the circumstances guardedly. “When people do this on TV, they’re always wide awake. Trauma to the brain isn’t like that. It’s not like a switch gets thrown and they light up.” Caveats aside, there was no denying the joy radiating from the doctor. “We’re always quantifying on a scale. On the low end, you’ve got no recovery. Up a notch from that is a vegetative state, and so on. Mr. Hall came back to us in what we classify as a minimally responsive state. Lots of gaps and lulls, but he knew his name and could follow simple instructions like squeezing my hand on command. Over the past few hours he’s progressed to small amounts of rudimentary conversation and can pick up things on his tray and put them back where they were.” The neurologist smiled. “For a little guy, he’s got a lot of will.”

  Gunnar spoke for the first time. His question ran true to form. “How soon can we talk to him?”

  In response Dr. Edda appraised Cody then said, “Cops.”

  They were shown a place to wait in the lounge where, through the crosshatch of security bars over the windows, they could make out a sliver of red taillights on the FDR between darkened hospital wings. Just past two a.m., Dr. Edda escorted them to Jackson Hall’s room, cautioning them on the way that their visit would be brief and not to disturb or excite him. “This goes against the grain for me,” she said to Wild, “but when I told him you were here, he beamed.” Stopping outside his door, she regarded Gunnar again. “Nice and easy, right?” Then she stepped away to confer with a nurse.

  Jackson Hall did indeed smile at her when Macie entered and stood beside his bed. Sure, it was disconcerting the way his eyes stayed locked on her for so long but Dr. Edda had prepared her for that. She took his hand, which felt dry and papery, but he gave her a firm return squeeze and his grin widened. So he wouldn’t be thrown, she introduced Gunnar Cody as someone who was helping her with his investigation. But Hall’s expression clouded and he swept anxious looks from him to her. Reading the moment perfectly, Gunnar spoke softly. “Glad to meet you, sir. And that you’re doing better.” Then he retreated to a corner chair so Wild and her client could have their own time—while he monitored.

  Beginning slowly, Macie asked how he was feeling. Hall pondered that a bit and whispered, “Alive.” His raspy laugh made her throat sore, but she grinned back. Gauging him to be more lucid than she’d expected, Wild eased into some questions, fearful he might relapse at any moment.

  “Do you recall how this happened?”

  His eyes drifted closed and the sheet slowly rose and fell on his rib cage. “Some fucks took me from behind.” He drew a sharp breath of remembrance and his lids popped open. “Strung me up. Left me to die.” The corners of his mouth twitched a quick grin. “Here I am.”

  Hall asked for some water, which she gave him from the cup and straw on his tray table. After a full minute of silence, Jackson Hall spoke again. Frailty vanquished for now, his voice came barbed with anger and resolve. “Too many killings. And, Lord, what will they do next?” He turned his head to Wild. “No more protecting anyone. Done with that shit.”

  Seizing the opening, Gunnar jumped right in. “Jackson, do you know this man?” He came over and showed a screen grab of Luka Borodin.

  Hall nodded, but didn’t seem fazed. “Some friend of Fabio’s. Hung out at the pier a couple times lately. Russian, or some shit. Came and went. Why?”

  “Was he ever there when Pinto was there?”

  After a moment to think back, Hall said, “No. And I remember cause he was always asking for Pinto. Why wasn’t Pinto around, stuff like that.” He gave them a look. “You think he—?”

  Dr. Edda and a nurse came through the door. “His heart rate set off an alarm at the nurses’ station.” She took her patient’s pulse while the nurse charted his vitals off a monitor. “I really think it’s best we call it a night, Ms. Wild.”

  Gunnar said, “But we were just starting to—”

  “—I have to insist.”

  Gunnar made the slowest exit in history, still talking to the patient. “Do you think you could tell us some of the places you and your crew hit? I mean besides The Barksdale?”

  “I am sorry. You have to leave. At least for the night.” Gentle, firm, and the final authority. As Macie and Gunnar headed for the door, Jackson Hall called to them.

  “Morning,” he said. “You come back then.” Wild gave him a small wave and left.

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  On limited sleep, Macie Wild stood before the judge in Arraignment Part One at eight the next morning, entering pleas for a low-echelon drug dealer, a second-time order of protection violator, and a shoplifter. She finished up by securing a reduction of bail for a young woman who went on a four-hour spending spree at Macy’s with a credit card she filched from a deli. Handing off her paperwork to her paralegal for processing, she pushed through the rear door of the courtroom to find Gunnar Cody riding the oak in the hallway outside Room 132, the office with the thick metal door and a sign that read, “Police Only.” He smiled as if he’d been expected and held out a cup of Starbucks. “You do the dark roast with one Equal, right? Thought you’d want to be sharp for our meeting at Bellevue this morning.” She hadn’t made arrangements to go there with Gunnar, but clearly, in his mind, that was a done deal.

  “Uh, thanks,” she said, taking the coffee.

  “Just another service we offer at RunAndGunn-dot-com.” He gestured to the main lobby. “Van’s right out front. That courtesy dash card, man. Still works like magic. Gotta love New York.”

  When they reached the hospital, instead of being led to Jackson Hall’s room, Dr. Edda sat down with them in the lounge where they’d killed time the
night before. The low deck of oystery clouds rolling in from Jersey had dampened the morning sun and filled the alcove with a dusky gloom. “I’m afraid you can’t see Mr. Hall this morning. And no, it’s got nothing to do with your . . . interview . . . last night. He’s had a bit of a setback.” She held up a hand in caution. “Nothing to be alarmed about. I told you, brain trauma recovery is slow. It also has its ups and downs. He’s in a down right now, and needs rest.”

  “When do you think we can see him?” asked Gunnar.

  “Maybe later today. Maybe in a few days. These things take their own time. But I understand you are eager to get some information from him.”

  “We are,” said Wild. “But, if it’s not to be . . .”

  “He asked me to give this to you.” The doctor held up a small envelope. “After you left last night, Mr. Hall insisted I write down some things and deliver them to you. Here.” She handed the envelope across Gunnar to Macie, who opened the flap and took out a sheet of lined paper. It was a short list of apartment buildings. Beside each building was a date and a last name (probably of the resident). There was only one full name on the page. It was at the bottom and it was circled: Jeffrey Stamitz.

  Gunnar surfed over her shoulder and said, “For a doctor, you have lovely handwriting.”

  “Thank you. And you still can’t go in until he’s ready.”

  They found a bench in Bellevue’s atrium where they could wait out a passing cloudburst and survey the document. They began with the circled name, both agreeing that Jeffrey Stamitz must be the burglary crew chief. He had introduced himself as Jeff to Dora the hooker and used it on the call to Spatone. Gunnar got out his cell and thumbed it into a text. “I’ve got a bro up in the Seventeenth Precinct who’ll run the name through the system for me.” He hit send and wagged the phone. “And he won’t ice me like that dickwad at RTCC. Why not? Because this bro owes me after I sent him some ‘anonymous’ head shots of Dora and the home invaders that I pulled from our surveillance video.” Gunnar must have read her surprise at that because he responded, “Hey, you think I’m not going to share material evidence on some bad guys when a life is at stake?” But then he added, “Before you think I went all kumbaya here, I’m covering my ass legally. Yours too. No charge, counselor.”

  With an early jump on the day, and only four addresses on Jackson Hall’s burglary list, Wild called Tiger to clear her schedule and rode uptown with Gunnar, hoping to interview some wealthy crime victims. On the call, Tiger had asked if she wanted Jonathan Monheit to meet up and accompany them. When she offered a simple, “No, thank you,” Macie could hear the knowing smile in Tiger’s voice as he also replied simply, “Understood.” The subtextual exchange left her feeling like working with Gunnar Cody was developing into her dirty secret. She glanced over at him while he checked the side mirror for his merge onto the FDR and decided she could live with that.

  C H A P T E R • 23

  * * *

  They agreed to visit the apartments in the order of Hall’s dictation. The first one was on East Fifty-Seventh off Sutton Place, just a few blocks north of where the crew had boosted the paintings from the pharma CEO’s penthouse in The Barksdale. Macie and Gunnar used the fifteen-minute drive to talk strategy. First, they wanted to get a response to their photo array of the various players. Now that they felt confident they had pinned Stamitz as the crew chief, their greatest curiosity was whether anyone had seen Luka Fyodor Borodin. Luchik not only had attacked Macie, but either he or Stamitz could have been the white blur glimpsed at Rúben Pinto’s murder scene. Gunnar had shown Pinto’s neighbor both photos early that morning, but Dr. McBlaine still couldn’t be sure. Second, they wanted an inventory of what got stolen in case there was a common thread or a pointer to a motive—or buyer. “I also want to get a sense of the revenge impulse from any of the victims,” said Macie. “Although Borodin still tops my list for killing Rúben Pinto.”

  Gunnar couldn’t resist a taunt. “You mean, assuming your client didn’t kill him.”

  “Pull my pigtails all you want, but the more I learn, the less I see Pinto, Hall, and Stamitz as anything but victims.”

  “Spoken like a true public defender.”

  “I think I may put my own jar right here.” Wild tapped a finger on the empty cup holder under the dashboard. “So you can drop a quarter in there every time you say that.”

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  Instead of putting them on the elevator, the concierge of the Sutton Crest escorted Macie and Gunnar from reception across polished marble the color of desert sand. They reached a secluded recess of the first-floor lobby and a corner grouping formed by two black leather sofas and a love seat around a coffee table of lacquered wood and bronze. An elderly man watched every step of their approach. He had the love seat all to himself and looked enthroned there in his long white robe and headdress. The ghutra flowed over his narrow shoulders in the traditional Emirati way, rather than being folded. “I am Fahad Sharif,” he said after dismissing the receptionist who delivered them. “You are with the police?”

  At the mention of police, the three young men lounging on the pair of sofas slowly turned to them from the flat-screen TV that was showing a cricket match from Wales. They were in their early to late twenties—younger versions of him but in designer jeans and expensive tee shirts. Wild could see herself in the reflection of the nearest one’s aviators as they passively regarded her. Then the trio lost interest and returned to their match: Sri Lanka versus Pakistan, according to the graphic. She was just about to fish out one of her Manhattan Center for Public Defense cards when Gunnar seized the lead.

  “I’m Cody. This is my partner, Wild.” Again so adept at speaking the truth that fosters the lie. He sure sounded like a cop, and if the wealthy foreigner from Dubai would accept obfuscation over identification, who was she to correct him? “We are here about the burglary of your apartment.”

  “Sit, please,” he said and gestured to one of the sofas. A son or nephew, whichever he was, vacated it and rounded the coffee table to flop down with the other two. While she put away her business card and took a spot next to Gunnar, Macie assessed the surroundings. An apartment lobby, even a posh one, was not her ideal interview site, but the concierge had whispered to them that, although he had an entire floor to himself, Mr. Sharif liked to spend his mornings in the public areas of the building, usually in the company of his family. They had no complaints. First stop, they had scored a hit.

  “I admit to a bit of confusion,” said Sharif in English with a Brit flavor that hinted at UK schooling, maybe Oxford. “You see, I did not report a burglary to the police department.” His eye went to Macie as she got out a notebook and pen but he didn’t object. “How is it that you came here to talk to me then?”

  Keeping the lead, Gunnar answered with his own question. “But you were robbed, were you not?”

  The old man considered then said something in Arabic to the others. Without hesitation all three rose from their sofa and left, going around the corner to what must have been the elevator banks. When they were alone, Fahad Sharif said in a low tone, “I am quite ill, you see. And I do not wish to involve myself in petty upsets. It is a wellness strategy promoted by my oncologists. So when I discovered the theft, I resisted the impulse to pursue or avenge it.” He angled his head toward Gunnar. “I have answered your question. Now, I ask you again, how did you come to know about it when I did not make a report?”

  Wild slid forward on her cushion to reply, but her “partner” broke in. He said, “One of the burglars is in custody,” once again telling a truth that maintained the illusion of being with the police. “This is a repeat customer. He admitted breaking in to your place.”

  “If he has confessed, what do you need me for?”

  “Information,” said Macie. Hoping they were past the charade part. “We wanted you to look at some photographs and tell us if you recognize anyone in them.”

  “That is not likely. We were not in residence at the time of t
he robbery. I only am here when I am in New York for my treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering.”

  Macie said, “It must be helpful to have such a nice place near your treatment center.”

  He gave her a condescending smile. “Helpful . . . Yes. Which is why I bought it. Because MSK is nearby. For the few weeks a year I am in the city, it is quite convenient.”

  She laid an array of four-by-sixes on the table: Borodin, Hall, Pinto, Stamitz, Spatone, the Pipe Wrench duo, and Dora. Sharif slipped on a pair of glasses and studied them methodically. While he did that, Wild imagined the staggering amount of wealth that permitted someone to buy a multimillion-dollar penthouse basically for use as a hotel for the dates he was in town for treatment.

  “I do not know any of these.” He took off his readers and sat back, suddenly fatigued and ashen, resembling a faded picture of himself.

  “Take your time,” said Gunnar. “Even if you weren’t here last month, is there anyone in this grouping who may have been hanging around? Maybe pretending to be a delivery person . . . Painter, plumber . . . anything?” Sharif looked again but with impatience. Finished, he shook no.

  Fearful of losing his cooperation, Wild flipped to a blank page in her Moleskine. “Could you tell us what was stolen to compare with the burglar’s account?”

  He closed his eyes. The pause was so long Macie and Gunnar exchanged glances. Their witness wasn’t dead, was he? “Jewelry,” he said at last. When they asked for a description, he closed his eyes again and recited a list, mostly thahab, “Gold, in Arabic,” he explained.