Anatomy of Fear

by Jonathan Santlofer

  Inside, one of the two entry lights had burned out, the back half of the lobby in shadow. I unlocked the elevator and rode up to my floor.

  I was too hyped to sleep, got a beer out of the fridge and considered giving Terri a call, but was in no mood to apologize. I sat down at my drawing table, flipped on my high-intensity lamp, opened my drawing pad, and started over. This time with no coat or ski mask. Just a face. But where was this new information coming from? I had no way to judge it. Was this the man we were hunting, or was I inventing him?

  I’d have to show it to Terri and the witnesses, but there still wasn’t enough of a face to identify. Even if there was, none of the witnesses had seen the guy close up, some not at all.

  The lamp above my table hurt my eyes, but I waited a few minutes to see if anything else came to me. When it didn’t I turned off the light and sat in the darkness thinking about Terri Russo, my father, and the face I’d just drawn that was shimmering as strongly in my mind as it had on paper.

  From across the street he watches the light die in the window. An afterimage of yellow orbs dance in front of his eyes, then fade to black as he makes his way toward the Times Square subway station thinking about the images he has collected and recorded in his brain and what he is going to do with them.

  32

  Harvey Tutsel’s desk reminded Terri of a teenager’s bedroom: brown-ringed coffee cups with varying amounts of sludge at the bottom, a Dannon yogurt container well on its way to becoming a biology experiment, crumpled napkins, and an opened gym bag with a pair of rumpled socks sticking out.

  “What brings you to Deadwood?” he said, lifting one coffee cup, then another, trying to decide which was the most recent. He sniffed at a third, made a face and put it back down.

  “That’s about three days old.” His partner, Mary Perkowski, came into their shared office with two Starbucks and a couple of fresh bagels, swiped the mess off Tutsel’s desk into the trash, and dropped his gym bag onto the floor before placing the new coffee and bagel down in front of him.

  “How’s it going, Mary?” asked Terri.

  “Busy, but sharing an office with this slob makes it all worth it.”

  Tutsel gave his partner a look. “Guess this isn’t a social call, is it?”

  Terri handed him the murder book on Rodriguez. She’d spent some time in a dusty room looking for it, had read it through and come up empty, same as the cops who had worked the case back in ’86.

  “Juan Enrique Rodriguez,” said Tutsel. “This have anything to do with what you’re working on?”

  Terri just shrugged. She had her reasons, but didn’t want to share them.

  “We got a lot on our plate right now, Russo.” He laid his hand onto a stack of folders. “See these? They go back over ten, fifteen years. And this is just a fraction.”

  “I realize you guys are busy,” said Terri. “But Rodriguez was a cop—one of us—and they never found the shooter. It could have been a case he was working on or…I don’t know. According to the file, there was blood on the gun and it didn’t all belong to the vic.”

  “In 1986…” Perkowski cocked her head. “That would have been before DNA, no, just on the cusp, so it wouldn’t have been tested back then. But if there was blood or tissue, it’s possible the DOJ have it on ice.”

  “Can you check?”

  “Hey, we’d like to help you, Russo, but we’re real short on staff.”

  Terri could see the murder book on Juan Rodriguez was going to end up under yogurt containers and coffee cups. “I’d rather not wait another twenty years,” she said. “Oh, and by the way, Toots, that nephew of yours who wants to intern in Homicide this summer—”

  “My sister’s boy, yeah, really bright kid, needs two credits to graduate John Jay.”

  “Right,” said Terri. “I know. His letter landed on my desk, of all places.”

  Tutsel gave Terri a knowing smile and reached for the book on Rodriguez. “You know, I think one of our guys might have a little time.” He turned to his partner. “Horton’s free, isn’t he, Perkowski?”

  “Not anymore,” she said. “I hear he’s working on Juan Rodriguez.”

  The hallway was dimly lit and the stairs creaked despite his rubber-soled shoes, though it did not worry him. He was a professional and he knew what he was doing. He had been watching the apartment for the past two hours. He had seen the man hobble in with a bag of groceries and had not seen him come out. The job had to be taken care of tonight, something about the guy wanting to take off for the Caribbean or someplace, which he had not paid attention to because the less he knew about a contract, the better.

  At the top of the stairwell he checked to make sure he had everything ready, then rapped on the door and mumbled the name he was told to say.

  A voice from inside called out, “It’s open.”

  He walked into the apartment and followed the flickering TV light down a narrow hallway until he saw the man sitting in a chair eating ice cream out of a container. The man had just put a spoonful of Cherry Garcia in his mouth.

  He put two shots into the man’s heart. The chair tipped backward and fell over, and the body hit the ground with a dull thud.

  The shooter waited a minute, distracted by an old black-and-white movie on the TV screen, Richard Widmark pushing a wheel-chair-bound old lady down a flight of stairs, and cackling. He laughed along with the actor, then leaned over to check the man’s pulse and noticed the Rolex. It surprised him, a good watch like that on a man who lived in such a fleabag, but he didn’t give it much more thought. Even if he were not being paid for the job he would not steal it; stealing went against his principles. He pulled his leg back, kicked the man in the mouth, and checked to make sure he’d shattered his teeth. Then he removed a small tin of lighter fluid from his inside jacket pocket, emptied it on the man, and struck a match.

  33

  The briefing room was full, standing room only.

  Archer and Richardson were in the front row with a few unfamiliar gray suits. New recruits, I suspected, and not a good sign for the NYPD. Terri and her men were just behind them, the pecking order clear.

  She glanced up when I came in. Our eyes met, and she looked away.

  I moved toward the back of the room and leaned against the wall as a few more precinct chiefs filed in, finally Chief of Department Perry Denton and Special Agent Monica Collins. Denton was whispering something in her ear, hand on her shoulder in a way both conspiratorial and flirtatious. From the look on Agent Collins’s face she was enjoying it. The man had an effect on women that was lost on me.

  Denton asked for everyone’s attention, though he already had it—the room had gone quiet the moment he’d entered with Collins. He went on to discuss the various news stories, Carl Karff, and the ensuing investigation into the names he had supplied. He stressed it was now a “federal case,” and that the FBI would be running the show from here on in. He asked for all NYPD files and information gathered in the course of the investigations to be handed over to Collins and her crew, then turned the meeting over to Collins, who introduced the new BSS and CIU agents and said that everything would now be processed through the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.

  “All existing evidence will be reexamined, the victims’ bodies transferred to a Washington lab for further testing.” She looked over the room without making eye contact with anyone. “Naturally the bureau will expect full cooperation.”

  I couldn’t see Terri from where I was standing but expected any minute to see a cloud of steam rising and be able to find her.

  I wasn’t sure if this meant the PD was in or out. If the feds wanted the local police to cooperate, they were in, right? It was hard to figure. But I realized something: I wanted to stay in.

  “We will confer with the NYPD on a routine basis,” Collins finally said. “And naturally, if anything should turn up in regard to this investigation, we expect to be notified immediately.”

  “Agent Collins.” It was
Terri. “We are receiving hundreds of calls a day, as are the other precincts. Detectives have been checking out all credible calls and—”

  “The Manhattan bureau has tapped into all of the PD’s tip lines, Detective Russo, so you needn’t worry about that going awry. We will follow up as we deem necessary.”

  The tip line was a sensitive issue with Terri and it appeared Collins knew it.

  Denton interrupted to address the crowd. “Please have all files pertaining to this case burned onto discs and turned over to Agents Richardson or Archer. For the computer-impaired among you, get one of the recent academy grads to teach you how to burn a CD.” He smiled again, a wolfish grin exposing sharp little teeth. “Don’t look so unhappy, folks. The bureau has just given you back your time. And I’m certain you can all put it to good use.”

  After the meeting broke up I wanted to slip out without being noticed, but Terri and her detectives were conferring with the FBI agents and Denton just inside the door. I tried my best to evade them, but Denton caught my arm.

  “Guess it’s back to the drawing board, huh, Rodriguez? Drawing board, get it?”

  “Good one,” I said. “But I wish I could have done more.”

  “Probably better to stick to your crayons,” said Denton. “A lot less dangerous, right?” He grinned at Terri, and it pissed me off.

  I turned to Collins. “If you don’t mind me asking, what more can the bodies tell us? I mean, why ship them to Quantico now?”

  Denton’s eyes narrowed in my direction. “You have a problem with that, Rodriguez?”

  “No. I was just wondering what Agent Collins hoped the lab would find.”

  “Well, why don’t you tell us, Rodriguez. You’re the one who reads minds.”

  I had clearly entered a big-dick contest. “I don’t read minds, sir.” I couldn’t believe we were going back over the same territory, but Denton appeared to be enjoying himself, a genuine smile stretching his lips and compressing his eyes. He turned to Terri. “Your boy here says he doesn’t read minds, Russo. That’s not what you told me.”

  I could see Terri wanted to say something, maybe Cut the crap, Perry, or Rodriguez is so far from being my boy you wouldn’t believe it, but she couldn’t with a crowd around them. “Rodriguez has a talent,” she finally said.

  I appreciated the effort. Maybe she didn’t hate me. Or maybe she just hated Denton more.

  “So come on, Rodriguez, it’s been a long meeting and we could all use a little entertainment. Read a few minds.”

  “I left my crystal ball at home,” I said.

  Denton laughed and so did everyone else. I thought it was over, but then I looked at Denton and the weirdest thing happened—a picture flashed across my brain.

  It didn’t last long, maybe five seconds, but it was perfectly clear, the afterimage still clinging to my optic nerve. I could feel my eyes blinking, and knew I must have looked startled, because I was.

  “You okay, Rodriguez?” Denton asked. “You’re not getting a message from the great beyond or anything, are you?”

  The room was in focus again, and so was Denton’s grinning face. “I’m fine.”

  “Really? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  “Woo-woo,” said Perez, and everyone laughed while the image of the burning man flickered in my brain.

  “You’d better take Rodriguez for a drink, Russo. He looks like he can use one.” Denton turned to me, still grinning. “So, was it a ghost, Rodriguez?”

  “No, it was a man on fire.”

  Denton’s facial muscles ticked. Then he laughed hard and loud. The others laughed too, all but Terri, who looked straight at me.

  When Denton stopped laughing, he said, “I know. You can be our in-house psychic.” He turned to his audience. “Hey, you all read about that case last week over on Staten Island, the one where the psychic was trying to help the PD find that missing woman? Drags half the local PD to a site where he says the woman is buried. They dig for hours, and what do you know, they find a skeleton. Problem was, the skeleton turned out to be a dog!” Denton laughed even harder this time.

  “My father tells the story of the psychic who helped them back in the seventies, also on Staten Island,” said Terri. “It was with this kid who’d been kidnapped on the way to school. Five, six weeks go by and they give him up. Then some psychic calls the station, says she’s seen the kid in a dream tied up in a room with a sign that says something about hot dogs. A day later they find the kid in an abandoned building in Coney Island right beside the famous Nathan’s hot dog stand. You believe that?”

  “No,” said Denton. “My guess is the psychic was in on it from the get-go.”

  “Actually, no, Chief Denton,” said Collins. “I know that case. We studied it at Quantico. The psychic was totally unaffiliated with either the victim or the perpetrators.”

  “Is that so?” Denton was trying to control a sneer but losing. “Don’t tell me you believe that sort of stuff, Monica.”

  “There are some things that just can’t be explained,” said Collins. “And if you’re hearing that from an FBI agent, well…” She laughed.

  But Perez wouldn’t let it die. He nudged me with his elbow. “So, Rodriguez, can you tell me what’s going on in my head?”

  “Yeah, sure, Perez. I’m looking in there right now. But all I see is dust.”

  Denton really guffawed over that one. He gave me a slap on the back, but that was it. He’d spent enough time with the commoners. He took Agent Collins by the arm and led her into the hall.

  34

  It was just the two of us, alone now, in the briefing room.

  I waited for Terri to say something, but she didn’t, so I said I was sorry.

  “I don’t need your apologies.”

  “And I don’t need to give them. But I want to.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  I touched her hand and said I was sorry again, but she shook me off. “The only reason I came to your defense back there was because Perry Denton is an asshole—and because you’re my responsibility.”

  “Your what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Is that so? Because I thought I was carrying my weight around here just fine. Fact is, I think I’m carrying it better than fine. A whole lot better.”

  “You going to turn this into another drama, Rodriguez?”

  “Me?” I started to laugh.

  “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”

  “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the absurdity of the situation.” I wanted to say it was not me being a drama queen, but I knew that would go over like the proverbial lead balloon. Plus, I wanted to make nice because I needed to know where the case was going now that the feds were taking over and, if I admitted it, I wanted to know where I stood with Russo, but no way I was going to say that. “Look, this is stupid. We have a job to do.”

  “Oh, so that’s what this is about, the job. I thought you were apologizing.”

  “I thought you didn’t want apologies.” I sighed. “Look, what do you want me to do, fucking bleed?”

  “I don’t want you to do anything, Rodriguez. Nothing, get it?”

  “Fine.”

  We stood there another minute not speaking, Terri sucking her lip and pushing imaginary hairs out of her face the way people do when they want to hide their expression. Every few seconds our eyes would meet and one of us would turn away. Terri looked really upset, so I finally asked, “Are you okay?”

  “No, but it has nothing to do with you. I’m just upset about the case.”

  I didn’t think she was being entirely honest, but didn’t think it was a good idea to say it. “So what do we do?”

  “We?”

  “I’d like to stay connected to whatever goes on—and I think you could use my help.”

  I expected another fight, but she directed her anger at the case.

  “What do they expect me to do, sit on my hands while the G brings in more BSS and CIU and the rest of
the fucking alphabet? I’m not going to roll over and play dead.” She stopped. “Forget it. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

  “Because I’m your responsibility, remember?” I added a smile, and after a moment something let go in Terri’s face and her muscles relaxed and she smiled too. Then she got serious.

  “So, tell me, did you really see a man on fire?”

  “Yeah, and it was totally fucking weird. My grandmother would say it was a spirit sending a message.”

  “This happen to you a lot, Rodriguez?”

  “No. The pictures I’ve seen in my head have always been connected to a drawing I was making with a witness. But this came out of nowhere. I’ve never seen anything like it.” It was true I had a tendency to see things in line and tone, more like drawings than real life, which I chalked up to extensive art training, but this was a whole other dimension. “Maybe I’m starting to see things.”

  Terri looked at me like I was a freak.

  “Hey, it’s your fault.”

  “Oh? How’s that?”

  “Trying to create the unsub’s portrait for you must have triggered a chemical in my brain that just won’t quit.”

  “So you’re doing that sketch entirely for me, that it?”

  She was right, of course; I was doing it for me as much as for her.

  Terri still had that look on her face and I told her to stop, and she told me to stop biting my nails, but in the process we’d gotten past the fight, though we were both a little wary.

  I needed to get out of the station to clear my head, and asked if she’d take a break with me.

  “Now?”

  “Why not? Your big case just went to the G.”

  “Thanks so much for reminding me, but I’ve got a deskful of other cases waiting.”

  “So let them wait.”