Hidden Charges

by Ridley Pearson

  At a corner drugstore he bought a clipboard and some paper and carried them for effect.

  Thirty minutes later he reached the southernmost end of the Green’s parking lots. Even with the cloud cover, the sunlight hurt his eyes.

  He waited ten minutes until he saw a delivery truck arrive. Glasses on, head low, he walked nearly a quarter mile across jammed parking lots to the delivery access on the south end of Pavilion C, a long wide alley between the new pavilion and the sports pavilion. He tried his best to look important. He didn’t know how to look important.

  As he approached, he pulled off his glasses. A fuzzy man-shaped object pulling a hand truck struggled with the service door. Steuhl held the door for him and followed inside.

  Nothing to it.

  The cinder-block service hall was painted a dull gray. Steuhl followed behind this taller man, on the lookout for the security camera. Blurrily, he spotted the box that was the camera overhead in the center of the hallway, tracking back and forth. Back and forth.

  The delivery man wheeled his hand truck into the back door of a toy store and disappeared. Steuhl saw where the pipes entered the utility tunnel.

  The camera was moving, but his eyesight was so poor he had to stare at it intently. It seemed to be moving away from him. Now! He slid a large, white, empty ten-gallon plastic container marked VEGETABLE OIL under pipes near the opening to the shaft. He set down the clipboard, stepped onto the container, and leaped up, taking hold of an overhead pipe and pulling himself up.

  The camera tracked back toward him. It was hard for him to tell if he was out of view of its fish-eye lens or not. He climbed up into the relative darkness of the utility tunnel.

  He was inside. Just like that. Nothing to it.

  He hooked the wire stems of his glasses around his ears and blinked several times. Finally, placing his foot on the bottom rung, he began to climb.

  8

  Julia Haverill stared listlessly into the mirror. She drew a brush through her full hair, wondering what to do. How would her father react? She knew him well enough to know the answer. She felt tempted to run away. All things considered, it seemed the best alternative.

  She had snorted up the remainder of her coke the night before. She hadn’t slept a wink. She promised herself she wasn’t going to buy any more. How many times had she made that promise? The coke was part of it all, somehow: the self-confidence, the desire to be older, the desire to show her maturity.

  She cried hard. Her mother had left her for the same throbbing of flesh against flesh, the same quick shudders of electric bolts jumping up the spine, the tight little convulsions down there, the shortness of breath. Her mother had not had time to fall in love. It wasn’t love that had drawn her away from them, it was sex.

  Julia moved slowly through her morning routine. No rush. Her world no longer threatened to come apart—it had been torn wide open. The stuffing poured out, like the stuffing from the eyes of her teddy bear that sat on her bookshelf. Her father had not come home. The phone had rung several times but she had not dared answer it. What would she say?

  For the first time she saw her affair with Peter through her father’s eyes. She recalled her risk-taking with Knorpp: making love on the Green’s rooftop tennis courts, in the private elevator, in Knorpp’s office, in the penthouse suites. Had it all been in hopes of being caught? Had she wanted her father to find them together?

  She pulled the brush through her hair, wondering where the next bend in the river would lead. Would he throw her out? Would she be left to fend for herself, spoiled by years of his doting, and his money, his influence? In the Green she had been treated like a little princess.

  How strange it was that now, only now, after her insane few weeks with Knorpp, did she find herself hopelessly in love with her father. Even yesterday, at this same hour, she had felt little love for him, only distaste at his selfish drive for more money and more power. He had seemed like an animal to her. Now, somehow, in his absolute anger, he had showed himself a human being.

  She ran downstairs and dug out the family photo album, thumbing through the pages slowly. She reached a shot of her father, taken years before, and gently touched his face with the tip of her finger. So strong and handsome back then. He seemed so complete and invincible. Her finger traced the lines of his strong shoulders. She could feel his hard hands take her chin lovingly and pinch her ever so softly. His life had been so full of success at one time. The photo album attested to that. The pretty wife. The little daughter with the cute blond curls. The big house. A gigantic shopping complex—the third largest in the world—under construction, and all under his authority.

  She slammed the album shut and cried again. God, what was she going to do? Run away? She’d been snorting and smoking drugs and drinking for several years now, such a grown-up woman.

  The anxiety crept through her slowly. She rubbed her arm with a closed fist. She felt restless and afraid. The house was big and empty. Her father was gone. Her mother was gone. She felt sorry for herself. She wanted company. She called Peter again—it seemed like the hundredth time—but he didn’t answer. Wouldn’t answer. She wanted some attention, some company; she wanted to feel good about herself, to feel wanted. No one wanted her now. Her father hated her. Peter wouldn’t be caught dead with her.

  All she wanted was some company.

  She ran back upstairs to change. She would get dressed and go find Peter.

  Peter had to be at the mall. She would sneak in quickly and ride the private elevator to his office.

  She would run away with him.

  9

  What a strange place to die.

  Steuhl could picture the thousands of people in the new pavilion tomorrow. What a sight. He sat in the tunnel, legs crossed, his foot tapping to the dull rhythmic thump of music emanating from the stereo shop directly below him, and continued twisting wires together. In all he had laid nearly a mile of wire. He had already set his timer for tomorrow at four o’clock. Now, even if they caught him, his plan would be carried through. The timer would detonate the main charges, and the pavilion would fall like a house of cards.

  Only if he was successful in getting the money would the timer be stopped. They owed him.

  His final step would be to connect the end of the detonation wires to the telephone system’s matrix outlets, making the electromechanical switching matrix for the crossbar telephone exchange both his detonator and his timer-interrupt: one telephone number would explode the initial charges; another would bypass the timer and detonate the charges if necessary; the third would disconnect the timer, rendering the charges harmless. It all depended on the outcome of his attempts.

  He twisted two wire nuts in place.

  His escape route would be through the utility tunnel behind Dispatch, down the central utility shaft in C, to the storm sewers that led to the river. The route would require less than eight minutes. He planned one last dry run later today in order to time himself again. Once in the storm sewers, he was confident he would be clear of any effects of the blast, if it came to that.

  He pitied the poor bastards inside the pavilion if they didn’t pay. It didn’t matter to him anymore. He would give them a chance. If they chose to ignore him, like the courts had ignored him, like the judge had ignored him, then that was fine. As far as he was concerned, he had a score to settle: his father’s life for two hundred grand.

  To hell with them all. They deserved to die.

  10

  Shleit appeared to have been up all night. He drank the cup of coffee hungrily, as a dog laps up water after a long run. He had the strong hands of a dockworker; it seemed he might crush the coffee cup if he squeezed too hard. “I checked out Steuhl for you. I’d have to agree; he sure seemed possible. Trouble is, you were right: Our records show he’s locked up at the Funny Farm. One of my people is following through on it. I’m on a pager. If he comes up with anything, we’ll know about it.”

  “Any report on the wire you pulled from our uti
lity room?”

  Shleit grinned. “I told you the lab boys would come through for us. They’re a weird bunch. They work at their own pace, send stuff up to Boston when they need the bigger gear. But in the end, they deliver. They find the evidence.

  “The wire was Number Twelve THHN. Nothing unusual about that, I’m told. Typical for a commercial project. We’re now certain that the wire detonated the charges that killed the electrician. The end of the wire in the light panel had partial prints from McClatchy’s right hand, confirming he was the one who connected it. That much we know. We pulled a nice set of prints from the flex conduit, but they could have been anyone’s. We’re running down the electricians who worked that area, but it’ll take forever, and I guaran-fuckin’-tee ya it won’t do us any good. We pulled a smudged set—a southpaw—from the plastic of the wire itself. We compared it with the partial print they pulled six weeks ago when the dynamite was stolen. No match. But we did get a possible match when we compared the prints on the wire to some of the prints we lifted from the top of your elevator. Nothing conclusive—too smudged—but enough for a good tickle. We couldn’t find a set of Steuhl’s prints on file anywhere. They got mixed up a couple months ago when they started putting everything on computer. Still trying to sort things out. We’ve requested a copy of his prints and a photo from the Navy.” He looked at Jacobs and shrugged. “Why not?”

  “So, we’re closer.”

  “We’ll get the bastard. The Number Twelve wire had some of the same fibers that we found on the notes you received: a cloth used to polish eyeglasses. So we assume our bomber wears glasses.”

  “The man we spotted at the elevator wore thick glasses.”

  “I know that.” Shleit referred to a note. “We also found fibers from other material. Samples were sent to the FBI lab in Boston. Their report says the fibers are from a khaki-colored work shirt, sixty percent cotton, forty percent polyester. It’s made in Taiwan and is sold by J. C. Penney.”

  “Incredible.”

  “So our bomber owns a khaki work shirt made by Penney, wears glasses he keeps in a case made in Hong Kong, and was careless when he installed that wire. He wore surgical gloves to steal the dynamite, but not to install the wire.”

  “Which indicates he believed no one would ever find that wire, and that means he intended to blow it up all along.”

  “I’m glad I don’t have to explain everything. Whoever he is, when we catch him, we’re going to have a nice circumstantial case built up around him. We can thank the lab boys for that.”

  “What about the magazine subscriptions? Any tie-in there?”

  “Haven’t heard. It would take some kind of stupid to use pieces of magazines you subscribe to for a threatening note.”

  “Not if it’s someone like Steuhl. Remember, he wanted to be caught. Whoever this is may be trying to help us.”

  “That gives me the chills,” said the big detective. “The crazy ones… I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the crazy ones.”

  An anxious knock on the door was followed by Susan’s inquisitive face. Jacobs waved her in and introduced her to Shleit, who stayed seated.

  “I thought you would want to see this,” she said, handing Jacobs her folder.

  He sat down and opened the folder. His brow crimped down over his eyes and he drew the computer enhancement of the man by the elevator to the folder for comparison. Then he spun the two around and let Shleit have a look.

  “I’ll be damned,” said the detective softly. “Thought he was locked up.”

  ***

  “Here’s how it happened,” Shleit said after six phone calls and as many cigarettes. Susan had gone. “They committed Steuhl to a hospital for the criminally insane. Because of budget cuts brought on by the new tax referendum, the hospital was eventually closed and inmates were divided between a variety of maximum, medium, and minimum detention centers.

  “Steuhl was placed in a medium. They kept him there for two of the last five years. Then, eighteen months ago, the facility became overcrowded. Way overcrowded. A federal judge ordered the facility to release a full third of the inmates. The order bounced around some appellate courts for the last year. Roughly eight weeks ago, the release finally happened. Steuhl was among those paroled.”

  “We still don’t have much. We know it’s him, but we can’t prove it.”

  Shleit said wearily, “One of my calls was to his former doctor. He’s furious about all this. Steuhl is incapable of taking care of himself, says it was right there in his papers. He was never to be released. He belongs in an institution.”

  “Terrific.”

  “I got an address from his parole officer.”

  “Then we’ve got him,” Jacobs said enthusiastically.

  “I have two options. I could kick the place or put it under surveillance. If he does have this place wired, the last thing we want to do is panic him. I sent a plainclothesman in to talk with the super of his building. He confirmed Steuhl. He checked for us—Steuhl’s not in. I put his place under surveillance. I’d rather catch him before we kick his place. If we don’t pick him up by morning, we’ll bust the place and see what we find. There’s no use tipping him off until we have him locked up.”

  “It’s a difficult call.”

  “It’s my decision. I made it. That’s how it stands. Right now we have nothing substantial to hold him on. We could bring him in and he could skate an hour later. If we ever get the damn prints from the Navy and can match them—something like that—then at least we can hold him, if and when we find him.”

  “It pisses me off that we can get this far and still be nowhere.”

  Shleit grunted and lit another cigarette. Jacobs went back to staring at Susan’s photocopy of the newspaper photo and the computer enhancement of Steuhl. He wished she were still there.

  Shleit thought aloud. “Somewhere he’s got to have a detonation switch, maybe a whole bunch of them depending on the number of charges he’s planted. I think we should bring the dogs back in. They didn’t check the whatever-they’re-called—”

  “Utility tunnels.”

  “Right. And we have to assume the charge that killed the electrician wasn’t the only one he planted.”

  “We also didn’t check this pavilion at all, and it was in this pavilion we spotted him at the elevators. That was an oversight.”

  “I’ll make the call.”

  “I’ll have my people search all the utility tunnels while we’re waiting. He could still be here, couldn’t he.” It was a statement.

  “It’s a big place.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Let me tell you something,” Shleit said. “There’s nothing more dangerous than an amateur, because he doesn’t know when to stop. And this guy’s an amateur.”

  11

  Mykos Popolov sipped his beer, his thick hand grasping the can, his sandaled feet in clean white socks planted firmly on the floor as he watched his wife clean up. “I have been thinking that if the new store is successful, maybe we should start a small chain of Greek Delis. What do you think about that?”

  “First I think we should see how hard it is to run two stores.”

  “Always the practical one, you are, Mother. Without you…”

  “Hush.” She approached him with some difficulty—her legs hurt badly—and leaned down to kiss him. She straightened up and marched over to the cash register to her pile of morning mail, to look through it again.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Her instincts had been right. Two envelopes were stuck together. She tugged them apart. The upper left-hand corner read The Italian Consulate and had a New York address. She felt her heart begin to pound. “It’s nothing,” she said, her finger knifing open the envelope. She withdrew and unfolded the letter, reading it quickly. Then her head fell forward.

  “What is it? I asked.”

  Her shoulders shook.

  “What’s wrong, Mother?”

  “It’s nothing, Mhykloteus.” And no
thing it was. For months she had awaited word from the consulate, hoping her husband’s war service would finally be recognized by the government.

  But the letter read:

  I am sorry to report that the committee could not consider your husband’s application for reasons of naturalization. It is our policy to only recognize citizens of Italy for such service.

  There would be no Military Order of Italy.

  She turned, eyes glazed.

  “Mother?” he asked.

  If only there was some way to make him feel—

  “Mother?”

  Earl Coleman entered the deli pushing a hand cart. He said, “All done. What’s next?”

  She wiped away her tears and went back to cleaning up. “It’s nothing, my love. Nothing at all.”

  “All done?” Popolov questioned. “That was fast.”

  “What’s next?” repeated Coleman.

  “Did you already stock the shelves as well?”

  Coleman handed Popolov a poorly written note. “I kept track like you asked. That there’s how many I put out on the shelves, and that there,” he said, pointing, “is how many is still in the boxes in back.”

  “And the walk-in?”

  “All clean. Mopped it up. No more smell of fish.”

  “Take a break, then. You deserve it.”

  12

  “She shouldn’t have come back,” insisted Dicky Brock from his seat behind the wall of television monitors in the dimly lit Dispatch Room.

  “If our people had scared her off, she probably wouldn’t have. Maybe I should thank the Flock.” Jacobs admired Brock’s ability to keep the cameras on her. Ralph Perkins spoke into his headset, coordinating radio communication with the sixty guards, uniformed and plainclothed, on duty on this Friday.

  “Ralph, let’s get a couple of guards at the mouth of A, and also between B and C.” Jacobs took control of the Chubb. He entered a command that caused the computer to request and wait for his password.