The Extortionist

by Vincent Zandri

  “There’s a clean glass on the drying rack by the sink, Detective,” she barks.

  “So there is,” he replies. “Got it.”

  He turns on the tap water, lets it run for a beat or two. Meanwhile, I take another look around the place. Nothing’s changed since yesterday. Or has it? Set on the coffee table, beside a stack of magazines, is an electronic device. It sort of looks like an old-fashioned transistor radio the kids in the 1960s carried around with them since you could fit it in your coat pocket. But unlike the transistor radios of the past, this one comes with a headset and a microphone. It also looks like you can clip it to your shirt pocket so you can use it hands free.

  “Mrs. Carter, you mind my asking what that is?” I state while pointing an extended index finger at the device.

  I swear, her face goes a shade paler.

  “Oh, that,” she says, her eyes blinking rapidly. “Don’t you recognize a portable hearing aid device when you see one, young man? At my age, I sometimes can’t hear very well, especially in crowded restaurants and places of that nature. I strap that thing on, and suddenly, I can hear better than your average teenager. It might not be pretty, but then I’m way beyond my prime, anyway.”

  She laughs, nervously. An idea comes to mind. I pull out my smartphone and go to the camera app. I aim it at the device.

  “You mind if I take a picture of it?” I ask, snapping a couple of photos before she has the chance to say no. “My mother most definitely could use one of these.”

  “Well, Mr. Jobz, if you don’t mind—”

  But it’s already too late. “Oh, my bad,” I say. “I just assumed it would be okay.”

  I return the phone to my pocket. Her face is even paler now. Miller comes back in, a glass of water in his hand. He starts making his way to the couch when the glass of water slips out of his hand and shatters against the wood floor.

  “What the fuck!” Mrs. Carter shouts, shooting up from the couch like she’s not pushing eighty, but instead, thirty or forty.

  She catches herself and feigns an innocent smile. She pretends to have a bad back by deliberately hunching herself over, then sitting back down, like she’s in pain.

  “My, oh, my,” she says, “such language. I don’t know where that came from. Will you gentlemen please kindly accept my humblest of apologies?”

  Miller gazes at her. “Never you mind, Mrs. Carter,” he says. “I would have said the same thing if I were in your slippers. Now, where do you keep your paper towels and a broom?”

  She gets up again, this time slowly, like she really is as old as the hills.

  “Don’t you worry about it,” she says. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “You sure?” Miller says, like he’s genuinely sorry. “It’s no bother.”

  “I’m sure, Detective.”

  He gazes at me. “Well, Jobz,” he says, “we’ll be taking our leave.”

  I stand. Miller’s seen enough to know Mrs. Carter isn’t who she says she is. Or so, I suspect. I go to the front door and the old detective follows.

  “That was a quick visit,” she says.

  “Lucky you, Mrs. Carter,” Miller says. “We’ll leave you to the mess we’ve made.”

  “Don’t worry, Detective,” she says. “I learned a long time ago never to cry over spilled milk . . . or water.”

  I open the door, step out onto the porch.

  “I wonder if she’s ever cried over spilled blood,” I whisper to myself.

  We get back in Miller’s cruiser. He doesn’t say a word until he’s fired it back up and pulled away from the curb. He speeds down the neighborhood road and barely stops for the stop sign at the end of it. Forgoing the directional, he hooks a right, speeds down that road, then turns right again onto a road that parallels Fairlawn. When he comes to Madison Avenue, he narrowly misses colliding with a pickup truck as we pull out into oncoming traffic.

  “Jesus, Miller,” I say, “you drive like you own the fucking road.”

  “I’m a cop,” he says. “I do own the road.”

  He pulls the radio transmitter from the dash.

  “This is Miller. Over.”

  “You got dispatch, Detective. Over.”

  “I need to grab an arrest warrant from the DA if he is isn’t presently pleasuring himself inside his office. It’s for Gladys Carter, resident of twenty-two Fairlawn Avenue, Albany. Got that? Over.”

  “Copy that. But what about the paperwork? What about talking with the DA yourself? Is an arrest imminent? Over.”

  “Get the paperwork started, and I’ll be in in a few minutes to finish it off. Over.”

  “Copy. I’ll get someone on it. Over.”

  “Thanks. No need to tell you this is a rush job. Once I speak with DA Soros, we’ll get an immediate arraignment arranged. Over.”

  “Copy. On it. Over.”

  He hangs up the radio transmitter. He’s still speeding toward the heart of the city on Madison. He digs into his interior coat pocket, pulls out his phone. Thumbing the pictures icon, he hands the phone to me.

  “Whaddaya see there?” he asks.

  I gaze down at the picture. It’s a knife. A big knife. Like a professional carving knife a chef or a cook might use to carve up a big turkey or a ham.

  “Now, look at the inscription on the handle,”

  It takes a little squinting, but the words are plain enough. Loudonville Elementary. Simple. Declarative. And entirely damning for Gladys Carter. That is, the real Gladys Carter lives at 22 Fairlawn Avenue which, if she’s dead, is a physical impossibility.

  “That knife look familiar to you, Jobz? That the same one some psycho pressed against your Adam’s apple?”

  “I didn’t really get a good look at it. It was dark. But yeah, it looks about right. You think this is the weapon that also cut up Anita Simon?”

  “Can’t prove it until we have it tested for blood and DNA,” he says. “But we got enough circumstantial evidence to bust whoever that lady is that’s residing at twenty-two Fairlawn.”

  “No way she’s seventy-seven years old,” I say.

  “You see the way she jumped when I dropped that water glass?”

  “Figured you did that on purpose,” I admit. “It was a test. An experiment to see how’d she react.”

  “And how did she react, Jobz?”

  “Like she’s a far younger woman, with a mouth like a truck driver.”

  He laughs while pulling up to an open parking space outside the Central Avenue Albany Police Department Precinct.

  “Let’s go finish up the paperwork and make an arrest,” he says.

  Two teams of APD converge on 22 Fairlawn Avenue. One team of two goes around back and another takes the front. Miller and I stand in the driveway while the uniforms do their job, their service weapons drawn. When we both spot a figure that matches Gladys Carter’s description emerging from around the far side of the house, and taking off on foot, things really get interesting.

  “If I didn’t know any better, Miller,” I say, “I’d say our suspect is fleeing the scene.”

  He doesn’t bother to answer. Miller’s a man of action. He’s also a marathon runner. He breaks out into a full sprint in pursuit of the fake old lady. I follow.

  “Stop right where you are!” Miller barks. “Down on your stomach.”

  He pulls out his semi-automatic. I pull out mine, too. Carter is running—not like an old lady, but a young, athletic woman. But she’s not fast enough for a marathoner like Miller. Especially considering the height difference. He’s able to shrink the distance between them in a matter of a few short seconds. Reaching out with his free hand, he grabs her by the collar and drags her down to the ground, face-first. Holstering his weapon, he reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a pair of cuffs. He slaps them on her wrists behind her back.

  Both teams of uniformed cops surround the old detective and his prisoner.

  “Read her the Mirandas,” Miller says, “and cart her downtown. Try to get an accurate ID while
you’re at it.”

  Miller turns to me.

  “She look like a sweet old lady to you, Jobz?” he says.

  “That was exceptional police work, Miller,” I say.

  “I still got it,” he declares.

  “I was prepared to apprehend her just in case you weren’t up to the task,” I say, not without a smile.

  “You keep telling yourself that,” he says.

  I laugh on the inside while following my APD boss back to 22 Fairlawn Avenue.

  We scour the place for clues. Turn it upside down. We bag the big Loudonville Elementary knife. We also bag the photo of the three Loudonville Elementary School employees plus the young blonde woman we now believe is the person who was masquerading as Gladys Carter. We take the small mechanical device which, it turns out, isn’t a portable hearing aide, but a device that alters your voice. It explains why the person who put a knife to my neck the night before spoke with a strange, mechanical voice.

  But here’s the strange thing. Other than those few incriminating items, there isn’t a lot inside the old rundown house that doesn’t support the fact that an old lady who fits the real Gladys Carter has ever lived there.

  “You think that’s the real Gladys Carter’s house, Miller?” I question as we’re heading back to Central Avenue Precinct an hour or so later.

  “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, Jobz,” he says. “It’s almost like whoever we just arrested was squatting in dead Gladys Carter’s house.”

  Something dawns on me then. “Maybe it’s possible whoever we arrested is somehow related to Mrs. Carter?”

  “You mean like a daughter?” Miller says.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” I say.

  “We’ll soon see,” he says. “First, we’ll book her, then hopefully we’ll get a quick arraignment. If there’s time, we’ll be able to interview her before cocktail hour.”

  “God forbid I miss cocktail hour,” I say.

  “Yeah, God forbid,” Miller says.

  As it turns out, that’s exactly the way it goes down. It takes only a few minutes to book and print Kyle Carter, Gladys Carter’s forty-five-year-old daughter and present resident of 22 Fairlawn Avenue. She’s being charged with one count of first-degree murder. Other pending charges are one count of extortion and grand larceny, and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, the latter having occurred when she attacked me outside my houseboat, and when she drugged me in her dining room prior to that. A count of impersonating a dead person is also tacked on, but I’m not entirely sure how that one works. It’s a first for me. All in all, Kyle Carter is lucky the death penalty has been abolished in New York State or she’d quite possibly be looking at a date with the executioner inside Green Haven Prison’s death by lethal injection chamber.

  She now resides inside an APD interview room. She’s been relieved of her mother’s clothing and now wears a green jumpsuit. Her blonde hair is short, her face young if not somewhat pretty and even innocent looking, just like the woman in the photo with the four women sitting around a kitchen table drinking the night away. Her wrists are bound to the underside of the metal table by means of a chain that’s been run through a metal ringlet.

  I also occupy the room along with Detective Miller.

  “We good to go?” Miller says while staring through the one-way glass.

  “You’re good, Detective,” says a tinny voice over a loudspeaker.

  Miller turns back to Kyle.

  “You want anything, Kyle?” he asks. “You want a coffee or tea? Something to eat?”

  He’s being good cop. Trying to get on her soft and gentler side, if she’s got one that is. Maybe if he can do that, she’ll spill whatever she knows about the extortion racket at Loudonville Elementary School. In other words, was she working alone, and what was so important about it she felt obliged to not only threaten me, a surrogate cop, with murder, but also to commit a real murder when she stabbed Anita Simon to death?

  We wait for an answer. Other than the occasional blink, she doesn’t give us any indication that she’s hearing even one word Miller is saying. A commotion comes from out in the hall. The door opens wide. It’s Terry Kindlon. The big, dark-suited lawyer barges in, a uniformed cop closing the door behind him.

  “Just what the hell is going on here, Detective Miller?” he says. “You arraigned my client without her legal counsel being present. And now you’re interrogating her? Have you lost your mind?”

  He’s got his big, leather briefcase with him. When he drops it onto the table, the whole concrete, metal, and glass room seems to tremble. He sits himself down just as hard.

  “You represented Gladys Carter, Terry,” Miller says. “Gladys Carter happened to die in her bed six years ago after a long, long illness. How Kyle here was able to get her body cremated and disposed of without the county coroner knowing about it, much less the property tax department and the Social Security Administration, is beyond me. But what the fuck, maybe she has friends in high places. Or maybe she paid someone off. She is a criminal, after all.”

  “I’ll second that,” I chime in. Then, my eyes on Kyle, I grin. “Bet those Social Security checks came in handy. When you’re through with State Prison in fifty years, you can do another dime or two in a Federal pen. How’s that grab ya?”

  Kindlon eyeballs me.

  “Did anyone ask for your legal opinion, Mr. Jobz?” he snarls. Then, his eyes refocus on Kyle. “Don’t say a word, Kyle. I’m now representing you in this matter.”

  “Did you always know she was an imposter, Kindlon?” I ask. “That puts you in legal jeopardy, too.”

  I don’t really know that, but it sort of sounds good. Anyway, it’s the obvious question that Miller has no doubt been dying to ask.

  “It’s not relevant to these proceedings,” Kindlon says.

  “How it is not relevant?” Miller questions. “We’ve got a woman assuming a false identity who not only stole half a million dollars from the Albany School District, she just murdered one of their principals in cold blood with a carving knife.”

  Kindlon and Miller proceed to enter into a staring match until the lawyer breaks it by saying, “I’m not the one on trial here. And I can also prove to you right now you got the wrong person in custody. In other words, you made a false fucking arrest, and I can’t wait to sue this department for negligence and harassment.”

  “We found the murder weapon inside Kyle’s kitchen,” Miller says.

  “We also found that silly voice machine she used when she assaulted me,” I add.

  “First of all,” Kindlon says, “you don’t know for sure that the knife in question was the one used in the murder of Principal Simon. Circumstantially, it’s incriminating, I’ll give you that. But it’s still not back from the lab and we don’t know whose blood will be on it, or if the blood will even be human. Second of all, that voice machine you’re referring to, Mr. Jobz? Did you actually see it when you were assaulted? Or are you just assuming that particular voice machine was used? Third of all, the individual who killed Anita Simon was a lefty. You don’t believe me, just place a call to the Chief Pathologist at the Albany Medical Center.”

  Miller gazes at me, then at Kyle.

  “Are you, in fact, right-handed, Kyle?” Miller quizzes her.

  She looks at Kindlon. He nods, like he’s telling her it’s okay to talk.

  “Yes,” she says, attempting to raise her right hand but then catching herself against the chains. “My dominant hand is the right.”

  Miller crosses his arms, sits back hard in his chair.

  “Jenkins,” he barks, “get me Georgie Phillips on the phone. Put it on speaker.”

  “Roger that, Detective Miller,” speaks the voice over the interview room’s hidden speakers.

  We remain quiet until the sound of a ringing phone replaces the silence.

  “Pathology,” comes a familiar voice.

  Georgie Phillips, the Albany Medical Center’s chief and by far, most s
enior pathologist.

  “Georgie,” the old detective says, “it’s Nick Miller over at Central Ave. APD. Got a quick question for you.”

  “What’s up, Detective?”

  “Just so you know, I’ve got Steve Jobz with me, plus the defense lawyer, Terry Kindlon and his brand-new client, Kyle Carter, who is presently arrested for the murder of Anita Simon, among other charges. You with me here?”

  “I’m on the same page, Detective,” Georgie says.

  In my head, I’m picturing the veteran Vietnam War Medic in his faded Levis, black t-shirt with a Who logo on it or maybe The Beatles, worn cowboy boots, and a long white lab coat, of which one of the pockets will contain a thick joint of medical marijuana. His long gray hair will be pulled back in a ponytail, and he’ll need a shave.

  “I’m assuming you’ve got Anita Simon on ice down there?” Miller poses.

  “Well, not on ice. More like on the slab.”

  “You start in on the slice and dice?” Miller says.

  “Not quite yet, Detective,” he goes on. “Something you need before I file my full report?”

  “Assuming you’ve looked over the knife wounds already, would you, in your professional opinion, consider them the result of a left-handed or right-handed perpetrator?”

  “Well, like I indicated, I haven’t really gotten into the meat of the matter, so to speak,” Georgie goes on. “But if you were to ask me my opinion just upon a cursory glance, I’d say a left-hander for sure.”

  “And how can you tell?” Miller goes on.

  “By the angle of attack,” Georgie says.

  The room goes silent again. Miller glances at his watch.

  “Listen, Georgie,” he says. “Don’t cut anything yet. Me and Jobz are on our way.”

  “See ya soon, Detective,” Georgie says, hanging up.

  I stand. So does Miller.

  “We’re done here for now, Terry,” Miller says.

  Then, turning to the one-way glass.

  “Jenkins,” he says, “you can return Ms. Carter to her cell.”

  “This is outrageous,” Terry says. “You must release my client at once. Clearly, she is innocent of all charges.”