- Door secured by latch. On springs. It popped open for unknown reason.
- Reasons for failure?
- Intervening cause--Unsub 40's hacking DataWise controller.
- No access to Dept. of Investigation or FDNY reports or records at this time.
- No access to failing escalator at this time (under quarantine by DOI).
CRIME SCENE: WHITE CASTLE RESTAURANT, ASTORIA BOULEVARD, ASTORIA, QUEENS
- Relevance to case: Unsub eats here regularly.
- Additional elements of profile of suspect.
- Eats 10-15 sandwiches at a time.
- Had been shopping at least once when ate here. Carried white plastic bag, something heavy inside. Metallic?
- Turned north and crossed the street (toward bus/train?). No sign he owned/drove automobile.
- Witnesses didn't get good view of face, probably no facial hair.
- White, pale, maybe balding or crew cut.
- Used a car service on Astoria Blvd. around day of Williams's murder.
- Awaiting word from owner of gypsy cab company.
- Service has reported on the destination.
CRIME SCENE: 348 RIDGE STREET, MANHATTAN
- Offenses: Arson.
- Victim: None.
- Relevance to case: Unsub 40 is the same person who caused Greg Frommer's death, intentionally opening the access panel of Midwest Conveyance escalator, at Brooklyn Heights Mall. Met Todd Williams and learned how to hack DataWise5000 smart controllers, which caused escalator accident.
- On night of Williams's death unsub got two lists from him:
- Database of all products the controllers are found in.
- Consumers who bought some of those products.
- Additional elements of profile of suspect:
- Under name of the People's Guardian, posted manifesto. Domestic terrorism, attacking excess consumerism.
- Can't trace the post.
- Intentional grammatical mistakes. Probably he's intelligent.
- Evidence:
- Improvised explosive device.
- Wax, low-octane gasoline, cotton, plastic, matches. Candle bomb. Elements not sourceable.
So. This is her home.
Red's.
Amelia Sachs, the Shopper.
The Shopper who was not courteous enough to burn to death in Todd Williams's office building.
I happen to be across the street from her Brooklyn town house, dolled up in some worker's clothing, coveralls, which, well, cover all. So as not to draw attention. Tired, now toward the end of a long, long workday (though I'm largely pretending at the moment, the fatigue is true). Coffee in one hand, mobile phone in another, pretending to read texts, though in reality I've been reading how well my screed against consumerism went over in the press. Why, I've even had some likes!
Studying Red's town house carefully. A Shopper. Yes, she is and she'll suffer for it but I've softened a bit (White Castles from the frozen foods section are not bad) and I've decided, Red isn't the sadistic sort. A Shopper with a heart she is. The sort of girl who if I had asked her out wouldn't laugh in my face and let loose about string beans and sacks of bones. She'd blush and keep a pretty smile on her pretty face. "Sorry, I have plans."
A Shopper with a heart...
So when I destroy Red's life I will probably feel some regret. But I think this in passing and get back to the task at hand.
Nice place she has here. Old-time Brooklyn. Classic. Amelia Sachs. German name, I guess. She doesn't look German, but I really don't know what a German looks like, now I think about it. She doesn't have braided blond hair and blue Aryan eyes.
I've been debating what to do about her. Red owns no products that have DataWise5000 controllers in them. At least not that I can find. She's not on my magic lists that Todd so helpfully got for me before his bones started to crack. Of course once a product gets out into the hands of the public, it can bob like a cork in the ocean until it washes up in someone else's kitchen or garage or living room. But I scanned Red's house for signals, like Todd showed me, and while I found some lonely little devices sending out their wireless beacons, begging to join a network, none of them will help me turn her into a mass of broken bone or blistered flesh.
Sipping coffee, which I'm not really sipping, looking at the cell phone, which I'm not really looking at... pretending. I'm blending in--an impatient workman waiting for a ride home at the end of the day.
Though I'm not impatient at all.
I'm patient as stone.
Which pays off. Because only a half hour later I see something interesting.
And I realize I now have the final piece of the puzzle that will let me solve my Red problem.
All right, I think, finishing my beverage and putting the crumpled cup into my pocket (learned my lesson there!), it's time to go. We've got work to do.
CHAPTER 23
Ron Pulaski walked out the front door of Richie's bar. He felt good, almost light-headed.
He turned south and kept walking quickly, head down.
What sat in his front left pocket was minuscule but seemed like ten pounds of gold. He casually slipped his hand into his pocket and touched it for the comfort. Thank you, Lord.
And thank you, he thought too to the guy he'd been sharing a beer with a minute ago: Alpho (Pulaski didn't like to use the dog food nic, even skels deserved respect). He'd hooked Pulaski up with just what he needed. Oh, yeah.
He could...
"Excuse me, sir. If you could stop right there, please. Take your hand out of your pocket."
Face burning, heart thudding, Pulaski stopped in his tracks. Knew he wasn't being mugged. But he also knew what was going down. The tone of voice, the words. He turned to see two large men, dressed in jeans and jackets, street clothes, but he knew right away who they were--not their names, but their jobs: tactical cops, undercover. He glanced at their shields, gold shields dangling from silver chains.
Shit...
He slowly removed his hand and kept both palms open. Non-threatening. He knew the drill; he'd been on the other side hundreds of times.
Pulaski said, "I'm NYPD, assigned to Major Cases. I have a weapon in an ankle holster and my shield's inside my jacket." Trying to sound confident. But his voice was unsteady. His heart slammed.
They frowned. "Okay," the bigger one, bald, stepped forward. His partner kept his hand near his weapon. Baldie: "We just want to make sure everybody stays safe, you understand. I'm going to ask you to turn around and put your hands against the wall."
"Sure." It does no good to argue. Pulaski wondered if he'd throw up. Deep breath. Okay, control it. He did. More or less.
The officers--they smelled of a task force--got the gun and the shield. They didn't give them back. His wallet too. Pulaski was inclined to argue that one but didn't.
"Okay. Turn around." From the other officer--blond hair in a spiky cut. He was flipping through the wallet. He clustered it, the gun and the shield in his left hand.
Both officers looked around and directed Pulaski into a doorway, out of sight of the pavement. They'd been conducting surveillance at Richie's, probably on Alphonse, waiting for a contact to show up. And they didn't want to blow the main operation by getting spotted now.
Baldie spoke into his microphone. "Sarge, we got him. The thing is he's on the force. Major Cases... I know... I'll find out." He cocked his head. "Pulaski? You running an op here? Major Cases always coordinates with us, DSS. So we're confused."
"Not an op."
"What'd you buy?" Baldie seemed to like doing the talking. They were close. His breath smelled of pizza. Garlic and oregano. He glanced at Pulaski's pocket.
"Nothing."
"Look, man, we got it on video. Everything."
Shit. The plumbing van across the street. He had to give 'em credit. There were a dozen plumbing supply stores on the block. A lumberyard truck, a taco truck, an HVAC truck... that might be suspicious. But not plumbing.
"It's not what
you think."
"Yeah, it is what we think, Pulaski. There's nothing we can do. It's on tape that's gotta be logged in," the blond partner said. He seemed personally upset at the prospect of busting a fellow cop for scoring drugs. But being upset wasn't going to stop him. Either of them. It just seemed that Blondie would enjoy a collar a bit less than his partner.
"We're in this far, Pulaski. You gotta give us what you scored. If it's a misdemeanor amount it won't go so bad. You can work out something with the DA and Benevolent Association."
They'd probably be thinking too Pulaski might be part of a sting himself--scoring drugs knowing surveillance was there and seeing if Baldie and Blondie let him go, professional courtesy. Then Internal Affairs would sweep in and take them down. So they'd have to treat him like any other buyer.
"I didn't score any drugs."
There was silence.
"Search me."
A glance between them. Blondie did. A good search. They knew what they were about.
Then Baldie was talking into his microphone. "Sarge, nothing on him... K." He disconnected and barked: "So, the fuck's going on here, Pulaski?"
"That." He nodded at a wad of papers Blondie had lifted from his pocket. Blondie handed it to him. He opened one small sheet of paper and handed it back.
"What'sis?"
"I had some money trouble last month. Need a couple large. Somebody put me in touch with Alpho. He hooked me up with a money man. I paid him back the last of the vig today. He gave me the marker back."
The cops looked at the IOU.
Borrowing money at exorbitant rates of interest isn't illegal unless it's done to launder cash--though a cop doing so probably tripped over some departmental regs.
Baldie spoke into the microphone. "Wasn't drugs, Sarge. Juice. Paid his vig and got the note back... Yeah... I will."
"You know, that was just fucking stupid, Officer."
"Yeah? How fucking stupid is it to borrow some green for a friend who's losing a leg 'cause he's got cancer and no insurance?" The fear had translated into anger and he decided if you're going to make something up, pick the most outrageous story you can.
That set them back a bit. But Baldie wasn't deterred for long. "You could've screwed up a major operation here. Your boy back there, Alpo, was supposed to be meeting somebody senior with a DR crew. He comes in, tips to you being blue and who knows what might've happened? He could've had a shooter with him."
Pulaski shrugged.
"He say anything about a Dominican?"
"No. We talked sports and how fucked people can get when they borrow at twenty percent interest. My piece and shield. The wallet too."
Pulaski took them and eased to his knees, re-holstering his weapon. He snapped the strap around the small pistol and rose. "Anything else?" No response. Pulaski gazed at him for a moment then, without a word, he turned and walked away.
If he'd thought his heart was beating fast a few moments ago, it was like a machine gun now.
Man, man, man... You lucky son of a bitch, he told himself. But not all luck. He'd planned ahead. Alpho had called him earlier and said he had a lead to Oden, the man who could supply Pulaski with the new breed of Oxy. "Catch or whatever the fuck you call it." They'd meet at Richie's and Pulaski would pay him two thousand for the information.
But leaving One PP, where he'd dropped off the computer from the arson scene downtown, Pulaski began to feel paranoid. What if he was seen talking to Alpho by a friend, or fellow cop? He needed an excuse for hanging with the guy. He'd bought drugs once from him but wouldn't do that again.
For some reason the IOU idea had jumped into his head. Not bad. He'd scrawled out a fake marker. When Alpho gave him the Oden info he'd slipped it into the same pocket as the IOU. It wouldn't pass forensics--no friction ridges other than his own... and forget about handwriting analysis. But he guessed that the DSS cops back there weren't much concerned about him. They just wanted to get back to their pizza and the Dominican banger stakeout.
He now extracted and looked over the note Alpho had given him, memorizing the address and the other information on it. He closed his eyes and recited it a dozen times, then ditched it down a sewer.
The hour was getting late. Lincoln and Amelia had to be wondering where he was. And he himself was curious if there'd been anything on Williams's computer that might lead to Unsub 40. But, checking his phone, neither had called. He texted Amelia that he was heading home--the Gutierrez case had taken up more time than he'd believed it would--but if she needed anything, give him a call.
Was she mad? Probably. But nothing he could do about it.
He was going to flag down a cab but was painfully aware of how much of his own money he'd just handed over to Alpho so it was subway time. He walked back to Broadway Junction to begin the complicated journey to his wife and children. Feeling dirty, tainted. And sure that even seeing their soft, smiling faces would do little to bring him comfort.
Amelia Sachs pulled her Torino up to the curb and shut the engine off. Sat for a moment, reading texts. She slipped the phone away but still didn't get out of the car.
After leaving Rhyme's she'd gone on two missions. The first was to meet with a reporter for one of the big local papers and give him a follow-up to the People's Guardian story. As part of the article he would print the list of products that contained smart controllers--though in the online edition only, since the number of such items was so lengthy. She'd also explained what Chaudhary had said, that manufacturers were reluctant or too lazy to install the patches to improve security. The CEO was going to contact them again but she'd decided that a news story about that reticence would create some public relations pressure for them to install the security updates.
The reporter had thanked her for the tip and agreed to keep her anonymous since she hadn't cleared her calling him with the brass at One PP. He left to further research and write up the story.
Sachs had then stopped by One PP briefly and was now here on her second mission--in Little Italy, little indeed, having been taken over by hipsters from the north and Chinese restaurants and gift stores from the south. She climbed out of the car, snagged her briefcase and walked south. Slowing her pace to a stop, she noted the man's silhouette in a window of the coffeehouse before her.
This place had been here for years, a classic espresso-and-pastry shop right out of a 1940s film. The name was Antonios (there had been only one owner by that name; the family, or the sign-painter, had never bothered with an apostrophe). Sachs preferred it to the three or four other surviving bistros here in south-central Greenwich Village, all of them resiliently resisting the chain-store approach to caffeine.
Sachs pushed inside, a bell mounted to the door jingling cheerfully, and she was assaulted by the smells of rich coffee, cinnamon, nutmeg, yeast.
Eyes still on Nick Carelli, who was scrolling through an iPad.
After a brief pause she walked up to him and said, "Hi."
"Hey." He stood up, looked into her eyes and kept his gaze there. No embrace.
She sat and set the briefcase on her lap. Defensive, the way suspects being grilled sometimes crossed their arms.
"What would you like?" Nick asked.
He was drinking black coffee, and she had a memory of a cold Sunday morning, both Nick and she off duty, she in a pajama top, he in the matching bottoms, as she made two cups of coffee, pouring boiling water through a cone filter, the sound like crinkling cellophane. She would sip hers immediately while he would set his cup in the fridge for a few minutes; he liked tepid drinks, never hot.
"Nothing. I can't stay."
Did he seem disappointed? She believed so.
"Newfangled." He pointed to the iPad with a smile.
"A lot's changed."
"I think I'm at a disadvantage. Don't you need to be about thirteen to master something like this?"
"That's the upper limit," Sachs said. She couldn't help but note once more that Nick looked good. Even better than when she'd seen him las
t. Less gaunt than then. More upright, the slouch gone. He'd had a haircut too. His appearance seemed better now than in his younger days when he'd been, she thought, too skinny. The sprinkles of gray among the black strands helped. And the years--and prison--didn't seem to have dimmed his sparkly-eyed boyishness. A bit of frat was forever inside. Sachs had believed back then that he hadn't so much ruthlessly planned and executed the hijackings, as fallen in with the wrong crowd and, for the hell of it, thought he'd try something daring, without considering the consequences.
"So. Here you are." She opened her briefcase and handed over three thick folders containing about eight hundred sheets of paper. The documentation on his case and related investigations. She'd skimmed the file years ago--not wanting to, but unable to resist. She'd learned that back then there'd been several hijacking rings operating in the city. Nick's arrest was one of seven in a three-month period. Some other perps had been cops as well. If he had been a sole hijacker--especially one going for a plea--the file would have been much skimpier. He flipped through one of the folders fast, smiled and touched her arm.
Not her hand. That would have seemed inappropriate. Just her forearm. Still, even through layers of wool and cotton, she felt the electricity that she remembered from years ago. Wished she hadn't. Really wished that.
He must have felt her stiffen. Certainly he saw her look away. Nick lifted his hand off her sleeve.
She said, "You've got to be careful, Nick. You can't associate with anybody's got a record. Your PO's told you that."
"If there's anybody who can help me and there's any risk, or it even looks like they're connected, I'll use, you know, an intermediary to contact them, a friend. Promise."
"Make sure."
She stood.
"You're positive you don't have time for a fast dinner?"
"I've got to get home to my mother."
"How is she?"
"Well enough for the surgery."
"I don't know how to thank you, Amelia."
"Prove you're innocent," she said. "That's how."
CHAPTER 24
Policing, Nick Carelli knew, was mostly paperwork.
You wanted collars but you hated collars because of all the forms, the notes, the triplicate, quadruplicate and whatever the hell five copies of something was.
The Steel Kiss Page 20
