by Tim Stevens
“Let’s go find Walusz,” he said. “And the woman.”
They were three blocks away when Drake heard the explosion behind them, the waterfall crash of cascading glass as the windows blew out.
Chapter 28
Venn didn’t start the engine right away. He sat behind the wheel, gazing at Beth in the seat beside him.
“You need to see a doctor,” he murmured.
She gave a strange, tight laugh. “I am a doctor.”
“Seriously, though.”
She met his gaze. “I’m not hurt, Venn. Like I said. Shaken, yes. But I got away.”
He’d spotted her in the crowded dim sum restaurant within ten seconds, huddled away in a corner booth and peering fearfully out. When he’d dropped into the seat beside her she’d pressed herself against him and he’d put his arm round her instinctively. Just like they once would have done.
Except these circumstances were very, very different.
Once he’d established she was unharmed, physically, anyhow, Venn said: “We need to talk somewhere quiet.”
“Your car,” she said immediately.
“I can take us –”
“Your car,” she repeated. “It’s the only place I feel safe.”
He guided her out. On the way, a waiter sidled up anxiously to ask if the lady was all right. Venn waved him away.
Venn went out first, checking that the coast was clear. The street was moderately busy. He saw no sign of any threat.
Now, sitting in the Jeep, Venn said: “We’ll drive around for a while. You can tell me what happened. But I need to take you to the local station house afterwards. The precinct needs to handle this.”
She didn’t reply. He started the engine.
Beth told Venn, haltingly at first but with increasing assertiveness, what had gone down. How Paul had called her and asked her round, soon after Venn had dropped her on First. How he’d sounded odd when she buzzed – “I don’t think that was really him, with hindsight,” she said – and how the gunfire from within the apartment had sent her back down the stairs, though not before she’d seen the old man from next door get shot.
“Describe the guy who shot him,” said Venn.
Beth had an eye for detail, Venn knew from experience. She said, “Middle thirties, though he looked older. That scrawny, wasted look you see on heroin and meth users. Long fair hair. Dark eyes, kind of wild looking. Dressed in denim jacket and jeans.”
“You think you could work with a sketch artist?”
“Sure.”
She recited the rest of her story. Another man had fallen down the stairs after a further gunshot. Beth thought he was probably another neighbour who had the misfortune to step out of his apartment. Several people had followed her, though she didn’t know how many.
“The guy on the street, the driver, was around your height,” she said. “Six-two or -three. Bald. Maybe forty years old. Muscular. The car was a black SUV. I think a Toyota.”
“Good stuff, Beth.” Venn didn’t ask any chance you saw the licence plates? That would have been too much to hope for.
He saw another fire engine streak past, and picked up his phone, dialing dispatch.
“Lieutenant Joe Venn,” he said. “I called in a possible homicide in Tribeca. What’s happening? There’s a fire somewhere.”
“There’s been an explosion at that very apartment, Lieutenant,” said the woman. “No reports yet on casualties, but the building’s being evacuated.”
Beth had clearly overheard. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth. And Venn understood. She’d been holding out hope that Paul Brogan might still be alive.
“We don’t know anything for certain yet,” he said, as gently as he could.
Beth shook her head. She said, dully: “He’s dead. They shot him.”
Venn gave it a decent pause, then said, “Do you have any idea who they might have been? Did Brogan ever mention enemies?” A thought hit him. “He’s a psychiatrist. Did he talk about any particularly dangerous patients he was worried about? Anybody who might be bent on harming him?”
Beth took so long to reply that Venn wondered if she’d gone into some kind of fugue state. Then he realized she was considering his question.
“Nobody in particular,” she said. “He had his share of seriously ill people, with psychoses and other problems. A lot of patients with personality disorders, too. He’d been stalked a few times in the past. But there was nobody he was currently concerned about. Nobody he told me of, anyway.”
“Did he keep any meds at home?” suggested Venn. “Junkies often target doctors’ homes and cars, looking to score morphine.”
“No. He was strict about that.” She turned in her seat to face him. “I know what you think, Venn. You think this all has something to do with that... other business. The Bonnesante Clinic.”
“I don’t know,” said Venn. “Maybe. The timing’s a hell of a coincidence, if the two things are unrelated.”
“How?” she said, her voice suddenly urgent. “How are they connected? Convince me.”
“That’s what I don’t know,” said Venn. “I’ll need to go through Brogan’s - Paul’s - history. And I mean everything. Career, personal life, political affiliations. Cast the net wide. And I need to do all of it quickly, before the trail goes cold.”
“We,” Beth said, quietly. “We’ll do it. I’ll help you.”
Venn would have gazed at her for longer, if he hadn’t needed to keep his eye on the road ahead. Once more, he’d been circling around, keeping within the general vicinity. He’d made a point of avoiding the street she’d escaped from, even though he wanted to check the apartment out himself, see what the damage was. He didn’t think she needed to be exposed to it again, so soon after the horrors she’d faced there.
“Okay,” he said. “Now let’s go find a precinct house.”
*
The cops who’d ‘caught’ the case, as the terminology went, introduced themselves as Detective Lieutenant Erin Brady and Detective Sergeant Darren Rich.
They’d appeared at the station within fifteen minutes of Beth’s and Venn’s arrival there. Venn had marched up to the front desk, introduced himself to the desk sergeant, and told him that the woman at his side, Dr Elizabeth Colby, had witnessed a homicide at the apartment in Tribeca that evening.
It got the desk sergeant’s attention immediately. He asked them to wait, and made a call. Even before Lieutenant Brady and Sergeant Rich got there, he bundled Venn and Beth into an interview room, brought them coffee, asked if there was anything else they needed.
Brady was a stocky, world-weary woman in her early fifties with a square jaw and a broken nose and eyes that were incongruously soft. Rich, on the other hand, was a slender, sharply dressed African-American man of thirty or so, radiating intenseness and tightly coiled energy. Venn hadn’t met either of them before. Then again, the NYPD was a big country.
Beth told her story once more, in the same amount of detail she’d given Venn. Neither of the two detectives took notes, and Venn wondered briefly if they were using some kind of hidden recording device. That would be illegal, so he decided they were relying on their memories.
They listened without interrupting. When Beth finished talking, Brady said: “So how come you called Lieutenant Venn?”
Venn let her answer.
Beth said: “Joe Venn and I were in a relationship for two years. It ended a few months ago. But we’ve remained friends, and he was the first person I thought to call.”
At the mention of it ended, Venn felt something twist with dreadful finality in his gut.
The detectives asked Beth again to go over her descriptions of the men she’d seen, both in the apartment and outside. “You’re positive you didn’t see anybody else up there?” said the male cop, Rich.
“I didn’t see anybody,” Beth said. “But there was at least one other person in there. Probably more. There were several voices, and when I was running away down the stairs, it sounded like
more than two people were behind me.”
Neither Beth nor Venn had mentioned anything to the two detectives about their investigation into the data at the hospital, or about the Bonnesante Clinic and Paul Brogan’s connection with it. The trouble was, Venn thought, that good detectives always knew when you were holding something back. However skilled a person was at committing lies of omission, as an experienced cop you developed a fine-tuned radar for the gaps in between the facts.
Brady looked at Venn, her eyes still soft, while Beth was talking. Venn returned her gaze.
Her look said, There’s something you’re not telling us, Lieutenant.
Just as Venn had done, the detectives asked Beth if she knew of any potential enemies Paul had mentioned. Once again, Beth said no.
When it became clear they’d exhausted the questions they had for her, Brady said: “You feel ready to sit with our sketch artist?”
“Yes,” said Beth.
A uniformed cop came in to take Beth away. Venn remained where he was.
To Brady, he said: “What have you got so far?”
“The fire department’s still at work, but their first impressions are that it was a gas explosion.” Brady looked tired, as if she hadn’t just come on duty but was pulling an extended shift. “The fire’s contained, and luckily the rest of the building has held up. Four bodies so far, one of them from inside the apartment. It appears to be male, but it’s messed up bad by the fire. The other bodies seem to be neighbors. Two of them were shot, one by what looks like a shotgun. The other is most likely a victim of smoke inhalation.”
“Could’ve been a lot worse,” said Venn.
“Yeah.” Brady raised her eyebrows. “Not for the ones who’re dead, though.”
“So we’re assuming the burned body from the apartment is Brogan?”
“Yes. Like I say, he’s badly damaged, but there’s preliminary evidence of gunshot trauma, too.”
The other cop, Rich, said: “The fire guys found the gas stove turned on.”
“So it’s arson,” said Venn. “The perps blew up the apartment to destroy their DNA evidence. Which means these aren’t just a bunch of hopheads who broke in randomly. They’re planners. And they have DNA on file.”
“Doesn’t get us much further,” Rich said.
Venn slapped the table, stood up. “Call me when you’re finished with Beth, okay? I’ll collect her. Don’t let her leave here on her own.”
Brady said, “You said you were with the Division of Special Projects.”
“That’s right.”
She eyed him shrewdly. “Care to tell me what your interest is in this case?”
Venn feigned surprise. “Like I said. Beth’s my friend. I’m helping her out.”
Rich gave a disbelieving snort.
They shook hands and Venn headed out to his Jeep. Beth would be with the ‘sketch artist’ – it was all done with computers nowadays, but the old names persisted – for a while. There was time for him to head to the office, despite the late hour, and brainstorm a little.
He called Harmony and Fil on his way to the car. Both were home and still awake.
“Care to join me at the office?” he said. “There’ve been developments.”
Neither needed to be asked twice.
Chapter 29
Skeet had organized a safe house for them, way back while Drake was still in prison. It was a pokey two-bedroom apartment in a block off Bowery, smelling of stale booze and mouse shit.
They’d dumped the three cars in the lot behind the building and were sitting around the living room on threadbare furniture, eating takeout pizza Rosenbloom had picked up for them. For a while, nobody spoke. The atmosphere was gloomy, a sense of failure hanging in the air.
Drake wrestled with his disappointment. He’d achieved his goal, after all. Dr Paul Brogan was dead. And if Drake hadn’t savored the kill quite as lingeringly as he’d hoped for, at least he’d scared the bejesus out of the guy before blowing him away.
What bothered him, though, were the loose ends. The messiness. Not only had an eyewitness gotten away, a woman who could ID both Skeet and Walusz, but they’d had to blow up a whole goddam apartment in the process.
Walusz seemed to be taking it hardest of all. Though he never spoke, he sat glowering at his half-eaten pizza, his face like stone. Drake guessed he could understand how the Pole was feeling. He’d probably feel the same way if a woman had given him the slip by throwing a wine bottle at him.
They’d driven around for a little while after catching up with Walusz, but when it became clear the woman had disappeared, Drake had ordered them to the safe house. There was no point roaming the streets of a city like this, hoping they might randomly spot one particular woman. And she’d have gone straight to the cops, anyhow.
Drake had a call to make. He put down his pizza and went into one of the bedrooms and shut the door.
The man took a while to answer, doing so just before the voicemail kicked in. “Yes.”
“It’s done,” said Drake.
“He’s dead?”
“Yeah.”
The man at the other end let out a sigh. “Excellent. Any complications?”
Drake had been ready for this question. At first, he’d considered saying nothing about the woman. But on reflection, he’d decided the guy might be useful in helping to track her down.
“A small one,” said Drake. “The guy’s girlfriend showed up. She got away.”
There was a silence at the other end. Then the voice said: “I don’t believe it.”
“Hey,” said Drake. “Shit happens.”
“Did she see you?”
“No,” Drake said. “Not me. But a couple of my guys.”
He related a modified version of what happened. The woman was on her way up when Brogan yelled to warn her. (Drake wasn’t going to mention that Brogan had come up on him from behind, and that he’d shot him reflexively. That didn’t make him look good.) The woman got away before they could grab her. Drake then killed Brogan, and a couple of prying neighbors had to be dispatched, too. They set a fire to remove traces of themselves.
When he’d finished, there was another silence.
The man on the phone said, “What a mess.”
“Not really,” said Drake. “I got the job done. A couple more people died than planned, that’s all. It’s no biggie.”
“It makes the whole thing more complicated, and you know it.” The man seemed to be gathering his thoughts. “This woman. Did Brogan say her name at all?”
“Yeah. Beth.”
“I thought so,” said the man. “Dr Beth Colby.”
Drake felt a thrill run through him. “You know who she is?”
“She’s a fellow physician of Brogan’s. Works, or worked, at the same hospital as him.”
Drake began to pace, his sense of deflation and disappointment entirely gone. “You got an address for her?” He found a pen in his pocket.
“Yes.” He recited it, while Drake scribbled it down on a pillowcase. “But it probably won’t do you any good. I don’t think she’ll be back at her home any time soon. Not after this. She’s been through some traumatic experiences in the past, home invasions and stuff. She’ll be too scared to return home.”
Damn. Still, things were looking considerably brighter than they had been a few minutes ago.
Drake said: “So we hit this Colby woman at work tomorrow, instead.”
“Again, that might be a problem. As I said, she’s been through a lot of bad experiences. She’s fragile. Something like tonight, it would have freaked her out. She may not be at work tomorrow.”
Drake was getting frustrated at the way the man kept batting everything back at him. “You got any better ideas, then?”
“Let me think about it,” the man said. “I’ll call you. Meantime, stay in town. And try not to screw anything else up.”
Drake didn’t like that at all. “Listen, mister –”
“And don’t get cute with me,
either. Remember. I’ve got you by the balls. You need a reminder?”
Drake thought of the image the man had sent him by text earlier. He felt his throat constrict.
The man said, “I’ll take your silence as confirmation that you do understand the situation.”
He hung up.
Drake gripped the phone, fought down the urge to fling it against the wall.
Compartmentalize.
He tore out the section of pillowcase with the Colby woman’s address on it, and went back in to join the others.
Chapter 30
Harmony and Fil arrived at the Division of Special Projects office forty-five minutes after Venn. He’d used the time waiting to call his boss, Captain David Kang, and bring him up to speed on the investigation, about which Kang currently knew nothing.
Kang was in an upbeat mood, and in fact had been almost continuously since he’d received his commendation last summer as a result of the Salazar job.
“Sounds like you got things worked out, Joe,” he said carelessly.
“Not really, Cap,” said Venn. “In fact, I’m floundering a little.”
Kang said, “You’ll come good, I guarantee it.”
Venn put down the phone. He’d done his duty, kept his superior in the loop. He didn’t need any further help just at the moment.
Shortly after that, Venn got a call from Lieutenant Brady to say Beth was finished with the sketch artist.
“She did good,” said Brady. “Gave us some damn detailed pictures of those two guys. Now, all we’ve got to do is find them in a city of eight million.”
“Assuming they haven’t skipped town yet,” said Venn. “That’s what I would’ve done.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Brady sounded glum. “The bald guy, the one who was in the car, looks kind of East European. Doesn’t narrow it down much, though.”
Venn said he’d be there in a few minutes.
Then Harmony and Fil turned up, and he filled them in on the events of the evening.
“I’ve been running a search on Paul Brogan,” Venn said. “Haven’t found much, apart from a bunch of online research papers he’s authored. And he’s on the hospital’s website, with a short bio. Doesn’t have his own site.” He nodded at Fil. “You’re much better at this kind of thing than I am. See if you can find anything more. We’re looking for, I don’t know what. Things he may have done that have pissed people off. Anything that might give us a clue as to why he was murdered.”
