The Ogden case was a low-level robbery that should have been handled by ECT. The Evidence Collection Team is made up of uniformed cops who, as the name implies, gather evidence and go. No analytical skills are required. But when we got to the apartment, we saw that CSU had been dispatched, and Chuck Dryden, our crime scene unit’s most meticulous forensic investigator, was busy at work. He’d changed his shirt and tie since we’d last seen him in Erin Easton’s dressing room, but that didn’t necessarily mean he’d gotten a decent night’s sleep.
“Good morning, Detectives,” Dryden said. “I see that you too have been recruited by the Department of Overkill.”
“Once again, politics triumphs over good judgment,” Kylie said. “What have you found so far?”
“Cat hair. Mrs. Ogden owns an orange tabby, so we may be looking at an inside job.”
Kylie laughed, which I’m sure made Chuck’s day.
A woman in pink scrubs entered the living room. “Officers,” she said. “I’m Lydia Humphries, Mrs. Ogden’s nurse. She’s expecting you.”
“Why don’t you tell us what happened first,” I said.
“It was all so fast,” she said. “Two men dressed like EMTs came to the door—one white, one brown, probably Latino. They said they got a call that Mrs. Ogden was in distress. I didn’t buy it. I was going to call her son, but they pulled a gun. Then they tied us up—both of us. I told them she was ninety-two years old, but they didn’t care.”
“Can she talk to us?” I said.
Lydia grinned. “Can she talk? Mrs. O. has heart problems, which is why I take care of her. But she can talk a blue streak. The hard part is getting her to stop.”
Lydia walked us into a large bedroom that looked like it belonged to Marie Antoinette. A ponderous ivory and gold armoire with two matching dressers lined one wall, cherubs frolicked in the clouds on another, and an ornately carved four-poster canopy bed dominated the center of the room.
Mrs. Ogden was sitting on a tufted love seat facing two windows that had an unobstructed view of Central Park. She stood up when we entered the room and extended a hand. I’d expected a little old lady, but Ogden was big, close to six feet. “I’m Bunny,” she said. “You gonna catch these fuckers?” Her language wasn’t exactly what Miss Manners would call ladylike.
“Yes, ma’am,” Kylie said. “We’ll need a little help from you, but we’ll catch them.”
“Lydia saw their faces, but by the time they got to me, they had put on surgical masks, so all I can tell you is the guy in charge was white, the other was Spanish. Both had brown eyes. The white guy puts a gun to Lydia’s head and tells me I have ten seconds to show him where I keep the money and the jewelry. Hell, I don’t need ten seconds. The safe is in the closet, I say, and I give him the combination.”
“What did they take?” I asked.
“Fifty thousand in cash. I could have lived with that, but then they saw my jewelry, and they got greedy. I said, ‘You take the money, and you’ll probably get away with it, but you touch my family heirlooms, and I will hunt you down.’ The white bastard laughed and says, ‘I’m doing you a favor, lady. You’ll be dead soon enough. I’m going to help your heirlooms find a new family.’”
“How much was the jewelry worth?”
“It’s insured for one point eight million dollars. But I don’t want the money. I want my mother’s necklace back, and my grandmother’s ring, and the black pearls my husband gave me for our thirtieth wedding anniversary. That’s why I called my nephew and told him I want the two of you.”
“You asked for us?” I said.
“Damn straight I asked for you. I read the papers, Detective Jordan. You’re the rock-star cops in the elite unit. These two sons of bitches are smart. It’s not easy getting past the guards at the gate, but they came up with the perfect scam. I need cops that are smarter than they are, and that’s you.”
“Okay,” Kylie said, “this was not a random hit. They targeted you, which means it may be someone you know. So let’s start with a question: Who is Maurice?”
“Oh, shit. Who told you about Maurice? Eddie the doorman? Maurice is Lydia’s brother. He’s a minister. He comes here once a week, and we drink tea while I bitch and moan about politics and sports and how this city is going into the crapper. And Maurice, who has the voice of an angel and the soul of a philosopher, talks me down off the ledge, and I’m good for another week. Finding him is one of the best things that ever happened to me, so please go back downstairs and tell the doorman to come up with a white suspect, because the black guy didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Can we get an itemized list of all the jewelry that was taken?” I asked.
“With pictures,” Ogden said. “I’ll have my insurance agent messenger it to your office.”
“Don’t forget about my money,” Lydia said.
“He took your money too?” I said.
“No, not really mine. My purse was on the table, but they didn’t touch it. The family leaves me two thousand dollars a month for expenses that might come up where I have to pay cash. There was sixteen hundred and eighty-four dollars left in the envelope. They took that.”
“Was that in the safe too?” Kylie asked.
“No. It was in a drawer in the dining room,” Lydia said. “But it’s like they knew. The white guy said, ‘Where’s the cash they leave for you to take care of the old lady?’ I wasn’t going to say, but Mrs. O., she told him where it was. Cursed up a storm while she’s telling him. They laughed, tied us up, and put tape on our mouths.”
My phone rang, and I stepped out of the bedroom to take the call.
“Detective Zach Jordan?” the voice on the other end said.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“It doesn’t matter who this is. What matters is I have something you want. Erin Easton. And if you want to see her alive, you have half an hour to get your cell phone to her husband.”
“Who is this?” I repeated. I had a pretty good idea, but I didn’t want Dodd to know that we’d ID’d him.
“The time is now eleven forty-two, Detective. You have thirty minutes.”
The line went dead.
CHAPTER 24
I went back into the bedroom, stepped behind Kylie, and poked her three times—code for Let’s get out of here. “You’ve both been very helpful,” I said, giving Mrs. Ogden and her nurse my card. “Call us if you think of anything else.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Kylie said, handing over her card as well. “Are you sure you don’t need any medical attention?”
“Positive,” Ogden said. “Besides, I think Lydia, the doorman, and I have seen all the EMTs we can handle for one day.”
We laughed at her joke, politely declined her offer to stay for tea, and promised her we’d be in touch. As soon as we were in the hallway Kylie pounced. “What’s going on?”
“Bobby Dodd just called me.”
“He called you? At the office?”
“No! On my personal cell phone.”
“Well, somebody’s popular. First the governor asks for you, now Bobby. What did he want?”
“He’s calling back in thirty minutes, at which point he wants my phone in Jamie Gibbs’s hand, or else.”
We got in the elevator, and I called Benny Diaz at TARU, explained what happened, and told him to trace the last call that came in to my cell. Then I called Rich Koprowski, one of the cops assigned to sit on Jamie Gibbs.
“Rich, it’s Zach. Where’s Gibbs right now?”
“His apartment, on Riverside, just south of Ninety-Fifth. He’s in apartment ten E. I’m outside in the command post.”
“Get up there and prep him one more time. He’s got a ransom call coming in…” I looked at my watch. “In twenty-five minutes.”
“We’re ready for him,” Koprowski said. “We’ve got every one of his phones covered.”
“Too bad you didn’t have mine covered. That’s the one the kidnapper called.”
“Damn,” Koprow
ski said. “He had a key to the back door of the dressing room, he set up surveillance cameras—this guy is really good.”
“You sound like a fanboy. Maybe you can get his autograph when we collar him. Kylie and I are on the way.”
We got to the lobby and ran to our car.
“Ninety-Fifth and Riverside,” I said.
“You’ve got to hand it to Dodd,” Kylie said. “He knows we’re monitoring Jamie’s phone, and it’s all over the media that we’re the lead detectives on the case, so he bribes someone at the phone company, and bingo—he’s got your number.”
“Hell,” I said, “all he has to do is find some millennial at Verizon who needs beer money for the weekend, and he can pull up cell phone numbers for the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
My phone rang. It was Diaz calling back. I put it on speaker. “Benny, what have you got?”
“I traced the call,” Diaz said. “It came from a computer in Guatemala.”
“Thanks. I’ll call you later.” I jammed my finger into the red disconnect button.
It took a few seconds, then it hit me. “I don’t understand,” I said to Kylie.
“Dodd’s not really in Guatemala, Zach. He’s routing the calls.”
“Thanks, partner, but I kind of knew that. What I don’t get is why he bothered to track down my phone number and call me. I thought it was because my phone wasn’t being monitored, but if he can cover his tracks that easily, why didn’t he just call Gibbs directly?”
“How many hours of sleep did you get last night?” Kylie asked.
“Less than three. Closer to two if I stop kidding myself.”
“We’re supposed to be looking for Dodd. Instead, he’s got us racing through Central Park delivering your personal phone to the victim’s husband. Why do you think he’s doing that?”
I didn’t have to think hard. I knew the answer. “He’s fucking with our sleep-deprived brains.”
“Yeah,” she said, running a red light on Central Park West. “And he’s doing a damn good job of it.”
CHAPTER 25
We got to the apartment on Riverside Drive with six minutes to spare.
Koprowski opened the door. “We better talk before you come in,” he said, stepping out into the hallway. “Zach, give me your cell phone first.”
I gave it to him, and he passed it to the TARU tech who was waiting behind him. Then he pulled the door shut.
“How’s Gibbs doing?” I asked.
Koprowski frowned. “So-so. He was okay in the beginning of the morning. I sat with him, and we did a couple of dry runs for the ransom call. Around ten o’clock he started to get squirrelly. He decided that the reason nobody contacted him was because she was dead. After I talked to you, I told him that the kidnapper called you, and you were on the way over. I thought that would calm him down, but no—he got all rattled. He wants to know why the man who took Erin is negotiating with the police instead of her husband. Right now he’s a nervous wreck.”
“Which I’m sure is just what the kidnapper wants,” Kylie said. “Let’s see if we can settle him down.”
We entered the apartment. The tech who had taken my cell phone was set up at a table with the bank of equipment he needed to monitor, record, and trace any incoming calls.
Jamie was in the living room. He stood up as soon as he saw us.
“How much money does he want?” he asked.
“He didn’t say,” I said.
“Detective Koprowski told me that the guy who took Erin called you. Why would he do that if he’s not going to tell you how much money he’s asking for?”
“Because he’s not negotiating with me. He wants to talk to you.”
“Then why did he call you?”
“Jamie,” Kylie said, “sit down.”
He sat on the sofa, and she sat next to him.
“Do you know how terrorists work?” she said. “They not only inflict physical damage, they create fear, doubt, and confusion in the minds of their victims. You understand?”
“Yeah. Mind games,” he said. “My mother does it all the time.”
“This guy’s not your mother. You don’t have any emotional baggage with him. He’s got something you want, and he wants to cut a business deal with you, so you’re not going to let him rent space in your head, are you?”
“I hope not.”
“Everything is going to be all right,” Kylie said. “You’re going to get through this. And we’re going to help.”
“It’s been twenty-eight minutes since he called,” I said. “If he’s true to his word, the phone is going to ring in two minutes.” I turned to the tech. “Are you ready?”
“All hooked up,” he said. “When you take the call, do not put it on speaker or he’s going to know he’s being broadcast to a roomful of cops. Just talk directly into the phone. You want the conversation to feel like it’s personal, one on one. Everybody else can grab a headset and listen in. I’m recording everything. Benny Diaz is tapped in. He’s going to trace the call.”
Koprowski had set up a large whiteboard in the center of Jamie’s living room. Kylie grabbed two markers and handed me one.
“Zach and I are going to talk you through this every step of the way,” Kylie said to Gibbs. “Take your time before you respond to anything he says. You good, Jamie?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to screw it up, but right now I don’t even know if Erin is alive.”
“She is,” Kylie said.
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Yes, I do. You want to know how I know that?”
He looked at her for the answer.
“Because she’s not worth anything to him dead.”
He nodded. It made sense. He half smiled.
My cell phone rang.
CHAPTER 26
I answered the phone. “Detective Jordan.”
“Are you with the husband?” Dodd’s voice was unfiltered, unaltered. Apparently he wasn’t worried about being identified.
“Yes.”
“Good boy. You take orders well.”
He paused, waiting for me come back at him. I didn’t take the bait.
“Put him on,” he said.
I handed the phone to Jamie.
“This is Jamie Gibbs,” he said, his voice modulated, his tone even. As instructed.
“Congratulations, Mr. Gibbs. You’re a lucky man. Your wife is beautiful.”
“Thank you. Please don’t hurt her.”
“I have no intention of hurting her. I’m sure you want her back in the same condition she was when you married her. It was a touching ceremony. I watched it on video.”
“Can I speak to her?”
“In due time. Don’t you want to know what you have to do to get her back?”
“How much do you want?”
“Twenty-five million dollars.”
Jamie bolted out of his seat. “Twenty-five million dollars? Are you out of your fucking mind? I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Mommy does, Jamie. Why don’t you call her?”
“You call her. See how much you get!”
Jamie was completely off script. Kylie held up both her hands and mouthed the words Calm down. Then she put one hand on his abdomen, inhaled deeply, and gestured for him to do the same.
He took a long slow deep breath, and Kylie pointed to the whiteboard, where I had scribbled Talk to Erin.
“I need to talk to Erin,” he said.
“Hold on,” Dodd said.
There was some rustling in the background, and then Dodd said, “Erin, nod your head if you know the rules.” A pause. “Good girl. Tell your new hubby what I have in my hand.”
“A knife.” It was a female voice, and from the look on Jamie’s face, it was the one he’d been waiting to hear.
“It’s a black straight-edge Ka-Bar, and it’s really nasty, isn’t it?” Dodd said. “Now, I have Jamie and a couple of dozen cops on the phone who want to know if you’re alive. Tell the
m what I promised I would do to you if you say something stupid or try to talk in code and help them find out where we are.”
“Cut me.”
Jamie stiffened, and Kylie put her hands on his shoulders.
“Cut you where?” Dodd said.
“My face.” The voice was a whimper.
“And then where else will I cut you?” Dodd said.
The words came tumbling out in heaving sobs. “My…my body. I swear…I won’t say anything stupid. I just…I just want to talk to Jamie.”
“Make it quick.”
“Jamie?” she moaned. “Jamie, is that you?”
“Erin, baby, are you okay? What has he done to you?”
“I love you. I want to come home. Please, please, please get me out of here. I’m scared, and I’m—”
“That’s enough,” Dodd said. “Did you hear that, Gibbs? She’s alive. Are you satisfied now?”
Kylie shook her head violently.
“No! I’m not satisfied,” Jamie said. “That wasn’t a conversation. That was her voice. It could have been a recording or an impersonator. I need”—he looked up at the three new words I’d added to the board—“proof of life. I want a video. I want to see that she’s really alive and unharmed.”
“Fair enough,” Dodd said. “I’ll get you your video. You figure out how to get me my twenty-five million.”
“I can’t get that kind of money overnight. It’s going to take a lot of time. Promise me that you’ll—”
“He hung up,” the tech announced. “The call dropped right after he said, ‘You figure out how to get me my twenty-five million.’”
Jamie slumped down onto the sofa and handed me the cell phone.
“You did great, Jamie,” Kylie said. “You did really, really well.”
“I didn’t do shit. My job was to calm Erin down, make her feel like there’s hope, and all I did was explode when he asked for twenty-five million. Did you hear her? She’s petrified. He’s threatening to disfigure her. He’s—”
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