The Final Deception

by Heather Graham

  Second... She had followed him, no time at all passing.

  Third... She had seen him in the alley, down on the ground with the victim.

  Fourth... She had screamed like a banshee, and a passerby on the street ran over in confusion. Someone surely had dialed for help at that point.

  Fifth... Milo had run in behind her as she raced down the alley, praying the man on the ground might still be alive.

  Sixth... She never made it down on the ground to help. Milo had pushed past her, immediately checking for breath and a pulse, then forcing air into the lungs of the injured man.

  Seventh... Mayhem.

  But she had seen Raoul Nicholson down with the victim. The man had been strangled to within an inch of his life, she thought, but had Nicholson done it? Had he had the time to find a victim, surprise him, strangle him, lay him down?

  Or had Nicholson surprised someone else?

  The gurney was being rolled away. Milo grabbed her hand to lead her out of the alley, warning her she was going to be answering a lot of questions.

  “What were you doing there?” he demanded. “That was no ladies’ room!”

  “Okay, I was...well, I saw...”

  “You started to the ladies’ room, saw Nicholson and shouted for me?” Milo asked.

  She looked at him. She’d get him into just as much trouble as she would be in for following an extremely dangerous convicted murderer—without her assigned bodyguard. Her reasons for not telling Milo where she was going felt very flimsy now.

  She nodded, hating the way she was lying, but knowing it was best, and only part of it was a lie, anyway.

  She had seen Nicholson and screamed bloody murder.

  They reached the street, and she saw there was already crime scene tape all around. Police were milling...and Richard Egan was there. Annie’s Sunrise wasn’t far from 26 Federal Plaza, and he could have walked to them easily in the time it had taken between her initial scream and now. The victim was secured on the gurney, being quickly trotted to a waiting ambulance by two EMTs.

  “So, what happened?” Egan asked, eyeing her. “Imagine—you were so close.”

  “Well, we’d just dropped the phone off to you, and we were in this area, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to stop by here for lunch. I mean, we’re close to the pub, too, but I’ll head in there tonight, so it just seemed like a good idea, and you never know what I might learn...”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “We had just gotten a booth,” Milo continued for her. “Kieran was on her way to the ladies’ room when she suddenly headed for the exit. I realized she had to have seen something that caught her attention, and I leaped up to follow her to the street, and—”

  He broke off then, too. Kieran turned to see what had caused his sudden silence.

  Craig and Mike were standing by the ambulance as the gurney was placed inside, speaking with one of the EMTs.

  They then came striding over. Their expressions were grim.

  “Special Agents—leaving, all set to go!” an EMT called.

  They heard a policeman in uniform shout to the crowd. “Back up, back up. Let these people through!”

  “I’ll go with the ambulance,” Mike said. “Just meet me at the hospital when you can.” Mike tossed a set of car keys to his partner. Dragging his hair back from his forehead, Craig stared at their little group—Egan, Milo, and Kieran.

  “What the hell happened?” he said tensely.

  “They saved a man’s life,” Egan said. “Stopped the killer in the act.”

  Craig’s eyes were still on Kieran. She started explaining again—with Milo’s help. With both of them explaining how they’d run into the alley and scared Nicholson off, the situation sounded natural—and good.

  “And you just happened to be at Annie’s?” Craig asked.

  “No. We came here on purpose. I talked Milo into it,” Kieran said.

  “And you saw him, and didn’t call—”

  “You asked me to drop my phone off at the FBI offices,” Kieran reminded him.

  Craig nodded. “Yeah, I guess I did, but Milo—”

  “I called Egan instantly,” Milo said.

  “And there had to have been someone in this alley before Nicholson,” Kieran said. “We—we followed right away. There would have been no time for Nicholson to have done that. Someone had to have come in from the other end of the alley and gone out that way, before Nicholson. I think, believe it or not, Nicholson was the one who interrupted the killer. I think he was trying to see if the man was alive. I mean...you’d have to be here to know how quickly this all happened.”

  Craig nodded slowly, looking at Egan. “Sir, what do you think? Is it possible?”

  “I wasn’t first on the scene...” He paused, looking back toward the street where the police were enforcing the yellow crime scene tape. Forensic crews had arrived and were spreading out in the alley.

  Egan turned to look the other way, deeper into the alley. “Cops are searching the end of this alley, assessing anywhere someone could have run. But there’s a subway line just the other side of the block, so if someone came out over there...” He trailed off. “Kieran, you can describe Nicholson as he’s looking now, right?”

  “Yes. I know he has to be apprehended, but there’s no way he had the time to do this. I believe... I believe the man who was attacked is going to live. Maybe he’ll be able to tell you what happened to him.”

  Craig looked at her. “Do you know who that man was?”

  She frowned, shaking her head. “No. Milo was working on him, trying to make sure he was breathing...”

  She stopped speaking, frowning.

  She didn’t know who the man was, but evidently Craig did.

  “Who was it?” she asked.

  “Simon Wrigley, head of the security company that manages Charles Mayhew’s building.”

  * * *

  “Annie, did this man come in here—often or ever?” Craig asked.

  Mike had reported from the hospital that Simon Wrigley was going to live. Mike wasn’t allowed to talk to him as yet. Doctors were working. The near asphyxiation had caused distress in other organs; and while they had chosen not to put Wrigley into a medically induced coma, he was still unconscious.

  Mike would be sitting right outside the hospital room until Wrigley could talk. In the meantime, Craig was determined to find out what a man who ran a company with an elite clientele on the Upper East Side had been doing in an alley downtown.

  “I recognize him,” Annie said gravely.

  Despite the crime scene tape cordoning off a circle of sidewalk beside it, Annie’s Sunrise was still open to customers. Now, people were piling in, and gossip was running rampant. There was a killer on the loose; a man had nearly died.

  While the police had given out no specifics, including the name of the victim, the sidewalk and the street had been busy. The attack had been seen by dozens of people, and, perhaps, people believed that more news might be forthcoming if they lingered around the crime scene.

  “So, you know Mr. Wrigley? He comes here often?”

  “I wouldn’t say often. A lot of my regulars work in this area, many of them on Wall Street. It’s just the way it is. You stop by for breakfast where it’s conveniently on your way to work. But I believe I’ve seen him here...maybe four or five times.”

  “Did he come with anyone else?” Craig asked.

  “I think so...yes, once he came with a young man in some kind of uniform. They sat at one of the booths. It was...early, I think. Breakfast. I didn’t get to talk to him that day. We were busy,” Annie told him.

  “But was he in here today—before he was attacked?” Craig asked her.

  She shook her head. “No.” She kept looking to the register. Her staff was running about like a bevy of very busy bees, and he was about to let
her go, saying, “Thank you, Annie. Just one more thing. Did you ever see him speaking with Raoul Nicholson when he was in?”

  “I don’t think so, but I don’t notice everything that goes on here. I stop to talk to people in the booths and to those at the counter, but... I don’t know. I’m sorry. I just don’t know.”

  She appeared to be distressed. He smiled at her and thanked her for all her help.

  “I’m sorry. I’m a little flustered right now... I... I’m happy to help you at any time you need.”

  He started to leave the shop, but paused when he heard someone at a table talking.

  “Man, that could have been me. I come in through that alley from the subway all the time. But I know it’s there and that it goes through. A lot of people don’t, but...then again, I’ve seen people follow me—guess they figured I knew where I was going.”

  It was a young man in a suit doing the talking.

  A Wall Street suit, he thought.

  Craig paused by the table. The man was sitting with another slightly older man in a similar suit and a young woman in a skirt, tailored blouse, and jacket.

  They looked up at him as he produced his billfold with his badge and ID.

  “Hey, is the guy all the excitement was over going to live?” the woman asked.

  “Hopefully,” Craig said. He looked at the young man who had been talking about the alley. “You come through that alley all the time?” he asked.

  “All the time.”

  “But not many people do?”

  “If you walk around the block that way, you’ll see—it looks like nothing. Like it ends at the building on the other side, but there’s a little turn. You have to know it’s there. Always surprised me. Most buildings are kind of wall-to-wall, especially down here. When you get to the ritzier areas, you may see more open spaces and fewer shared walls. But it makes it really easy to get over here, when the sidewalks, especially at certain times of the day, are as crowded as the streets.”

  “People gridlock,” the other man said.

  “I’d have never been in that alley,” the woman said. “Once it starts getting dark, it’s like no light penetrates at all. Creepy. But I guess those who hang around here do come to know it. Now that this has happened...” She looked across the table at the man who had spoken first “Don’t you dare go down that alley anymore! If that man hadn’t been seen...” Her voice trailed off.

  Craig thanked them and went back outside. He walked down the alley, moving carefully lest he disturb the crime scene crew on-site, pausing at one time to show his badge to the head of the team.

  He traveled down the narrow strip by the building that housed Annie’s Sunrise, taking it all the way to the end and turning to where it led out to the sidewalk on the other side.

  It remained narrow on both sides, little more than enough space for two people to walk abreast.

  When he reached the sidewalk, he saw the stairs down to the subway were just another twenty feet down the block.

  Nicholson could have escaped that way.

  So could have anyone else who might have been there.

  He wondered if Kieran was right, and tried to put together the timing of the previous two hours. If she was correct in her assessment, someone had come through the alley from the end by the subway. That person had either followed Simon Wrigley or come upon him accidentally.

  Wrigley had been strangled to the point of lost consciousness.

  Had death been intended? Had the killer carried a knife to cut out the tongue and a grapefruit spoon for the eyes and a can of gasoline to torch the victim?

  Raoul Nicholson?

  Or had the Fireman actually stopped another from imitating his methods?

  Two killers. They’d suspected it. And the other killer was someone who must have frequented Annie’s Sunrise, someone who knew Raoul Nicholson.

  His lieutenant, his right-hand man?

  But what did it have to do with Simon Wrigley?

  Craig headed back out to the street where the Bureau car remained, watched over by the officers still at the scene while the crime scene crew continued to pick up every bit of trash, every cigarette butt, anything they could find in the narrow alley.

  Most of it would mean nothing.

  But anything could mean something.

  At the car he looked in the direction of Federal Plaza; he knew Kieran was there with Milo and Egan, and they were filing reports. They were safe; they were fine. He needed to get to the hospital. There was a solid chance Simon Wrigley might have seen his attacker.

  And if so, all the answers might be waiting for them, locked in the mind of an unconscious man.

  * * *

  Kieran went over the events that had just occurred again, this time without Milo DeLuca at her side.

  They were both supposed to report everything just as they had seen it occur.

  The agent in charge took her testimony before she went to sit in Egan’s office to wait for Craig to come back, which she thought might be a long time.

  But then her phone rang, and it was Craig.

  “You just happened to be at that coffee shop,” he said dryly, without preamble.

  “No, I told you. I went there on purpose.”

  “Why? You already stalked Annie.”

  “I didn’t stalk her!” Kieran protested. “Craig, I can’t help it. I—”

  “It’s all right. You went to a coffee shop. You happened to see Nicholson, or maybe he followed you there. He was either in the act of attempted murder on Simon Wrigley, or saving Simon Wrigley from a killer. Either way, Simon Wrigley should be extremely grateful you were there. Because if Nicholson was saving Wrigley, he wouldn’t have gone so far as to call the cops or EMTs.”

  “You haven’t been able to talk to Simon Wrigley yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Craig, I need you to know that I really don’t believe Nicholson was trying to kill Simon Wrigley. I’ve said since the start that he only ever killed people the voice he heard told him to. And we know someone called him as the ‘voice.’ I think someone found people who did have problems, physical problems or mental problems. They might have been a danger to others, even inadvertently. The voice found these people and told Nicholson to kill them, but how did they choose the victims? Maybe they knew about them because of access to medical records, or maybe even just knew the victims. But Charles Mayhew was very rich, and probably had his fingers in a million schemes. If we just knew what kind of thing he was up to...”

  “Egan has forensic accountants working on his books,” he told her. “And on Olav Blom’s accounting, as well, though honestly, I think Blom just happened to be a means to an end.” He was quiet a moment. “I’ve started to think Nicholson’s wife, beneath her tragic little housewife appearance, is more deranged than her husband, but she was at her apartment when all this happened today. There has been a man watching Thomas and John Nicholson, and they were at Thomas’s apartment all day. They received a food delivery right about the time this all happened, as well. Right now, I’m hoping Wrigley wakes up soon, and he can tell us exactly what happened.”

  He paused for a second, then went on. “But I called you to tell you Milo has asked to stay on as your guard detail. He’ll take you to the pub and hang around until I’m able to get there tonight. Don’t go out the door chasing after people, huh?”

  She chose to ignore his jab. “I think that I’m going to head to the apartment first and pick up Ruff. That’s all right with you, right?”

  “Sure. Just keep Milo with you. He seems to be doing a good job of looking after you—whatever crazy thing you decide to do.”

  “Hey—”

  “Since I can’t always be there with you,” he went on. She smiled, relieved he wasn’t too angry at her. “Stay safe, Kieran, okay? I’ll see you at the pub.”

  �
�I love you,” she said softly.

  “I love you, too. I just wish...”

  “What?”

  “That you’d stop being right in the middle of things when they’re all going south!”

  “Probably not going to happen,” she said quietly, only half joking. “We’ll talk.”

  “Yes, we will.”

  She hit the end button on her phone and sat behind Egan’s desk, thoughtful. She knew the Bureau was a well-oiled machine, and there were a score of people dedicated to finding out everything that could be discovered. They could track money trails and activity; and in the age of the internet, they could even find out what kind of cologne a person might buy.

  But there had to be something they should be looking for they didn’t know they should be looking for—someone who needed to be investigated they hadn’t investigated.

  There was a knock at the door and she sat up. Milo poked his head in.

  “Ready?”

  The afternoon was nice, storm clouds and rain not on the horizon, and Kieran suggested they just leave the car in the lot and walk. Milo agreed; traffic was growing heavy. It would take about ten minutes to reach her apartment on foot. It might be a good twenty minutes if they sat in rush hour.

  As they walked, she told him, “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “Saving my ass.”

  “Thank you for saving mine,” he said with a grin. Then he grew somber. “Seriously, Kieran, if something happens again, please let me know.”

  She sighed. “Nicholson indicated he wouldn’t talk to me unless I was alone.”

  “But tell me anyway. Because I can follow discreetly—and at least I’d know you might get into trouble.”

  “But I didn’t get into trouble.”

  “No, we might have saved a life.”

  “We just might have!”

  At her building, Kieran put a happy Ruff on his leash, and they started back out.

  “He’s not supposed to be in a restaurant, is he?”

  “Not really. I’m planning on sneaking him back to the office.”

  “What if you have a nasty customer who wants to complain? Wait—I know. Finnegan’s just doesn’t get nasty customers.”