Into Darkness

by T. J. Brearton

  Ben had a different look, though. A different feel. Like someone not quite comfortable in his own skin.

  Or maybe she was reading into it too much.

  Shannon noticed her own reflection in the glass, and she moved away. They’d need to have a close look at everything here. They were already into Monica’s phone, but would need her laptop, too, statements from co-workers, her bosses. Shannon browsed Monica’s things on the woman’s dresser, took a look around in the walk-in closet at the shoes, noticed a couple of boxes on a high shelf, and had just a quick peek at them – photos in one, old bills and paperwork in another. Ben’s side of the closet was messier, with piles of boots and work gloves and a couple of hard hats.

  When she returned to the kitchen, Caldoza was sitting on a stool, his hands folded, and he watched her as she approached. Ben Forbes was holding a cup of water in both hands, gazing down at nothing. Then he looked up and seemed to remember she was there.

  Shannon said, “You said Monica was late, working on something – do you know what it was?”

  Forbes pushed away from the sink and set the water glass down on the island. He rubbed his hands together and shook his head. “Ah, you know, she never really told me when she was cooking something up.”

  Shannon nodded, look around, then said, “Did she do that a lot? Look for stories?”

  “Well, it was in her. I mean, that’s what she did for years as a media producer. She would find stories. She’d do the research and pull the resources to cover them. So when she took the position on The Scene, it was with the caveat she’d want to keep pursuing stories, and they went for it.”

  “So,” Shannon said, “eventually she’d tell you what she was working on. Or maybe you’d see it on air.”

  “Right. Yeah. I mean, they didn’t always go for it. She had maybe ten, maybe twenty percent of her ideas taken up by management.” A light came into his eyes and he snapped his fingers. “You know, she was looking into something about a month ago …”

  Shannon glanced at Caldoza, who raised his eyebrows at her and turned back to Forbes.

  Forbes continued, “She had this thing where she was looking at some land-use issue, something that they deal with at city hall. From up in the Bronx. We talked about it a little because I’m a contractor.”

  “What came of the story?” Shannon asked.

  “I don’t know. I think she was hitting a wall with it. Monica liked to push journalism, but the edgiest the producers of The Scene wanted to get was to talk about football concussions, too much high-fructose corn syrup in soft drinks, things like that.”

  “You work as a contractor,” Shannon said.

  He nodded and twirled his finger in the air to indicate his surroundings. “This building, this was my project. But I’m all over the place. All the boroughs, both sides of the river, and a lot of restorations and renovations …” He trailed off, looking at Caldoza.

  Caldoza’s phone was buzzing. “Excuse me.” He stepped off the stool and took the call.

  Forbes watched him walk away, desperation filling his features again.

  Shannon asked, “Mr. Forbes? What do you think happened?”

  His haunted eyes found her. “I was up all night … I just …” He sobbed then, a noise that sounded like he was choking, then regained his composure. “I kept thinking about the thing with the other reporter.”

  “Eva Diaz.”

  “Monica and I talked about her. It was just an oh my God, can you believe that kind of thing, but we thought, you know, her being a reporter was arbitrary. But when it was going on two o’clock this morning, and Monica wasn’t here, all I could think about were those pictures of Eva Diaz on the side of the road …”

  Caldoza came back, walking fast, before Forbes could fully sob. Caldoza’s eyes darted between Shannon and Forbes. “Mr. Forbes, thank you so much for talking to us. We’ve got to run, but we’ll be in touch.”

  Shannon got the vibe: something happened – someone found something or learned something new.

  She followed Caldoza to the door, with Forbes on her heels. “What do you want me to do?” Forbes asked.

  Over his shoulder, Caldoza said, “Just sit tight, Mr. Forbes. We’ll be in touch.” He opened the door and stepped out into the anteroom and pressed the button to summon the elevator.

  Forbes lingered in the doorway. “Did something happen?”

  “Everything’s fine. We’ll be in touch.” Caldoza pressed the button again.

  Shannon looked between Caldoza and Forbes and then stepped toward Monica Forbes’s addled husband. Her voice soft, she said, “A couple things you can do. One, try to get some rest. Eat something. We could find Monica today, and she might need you to be in your best possible shape. The other thing, start a list. Everyone Monica knows in the area–”

  “I gave that all to the police already. At four this morning.”

  “I know. I know …”

  He dropped his gaze and nodded thoughtfully. “But yeah, maybe there’s more. Maybe there’s something I missed.”

  She touched his arm. “Hang in there.”

  The elevator chimed as the doors opened.

  6

  They ran.

  “Call came in through the hotline,” Caldoza had explained in the elevator. “A witness says she saw a man approach a woman last night, put her in the back of his car, drive off.”

  Abduction.

  The location given by the witness was two blocks west of Monica’s home address – they were practically right there. Whitaker had already sent uniformed officers to the location and Shannon saw them up ahead as she jogged along beside Caldoza. Just a couple of blocks in the humidity and she could feel the sweat breaking her skin, even though the sun was still low, the street in flat light.

  One block closer – and one just east from the Bedford Avenue subway station – an African-American woman in a bright, colorful head scarf was talking to two uniformed NYPD cops. Two more officers cordoned off the area with yellow crime scene tape.

  “Nobody touch anything!” Caldoza called, hustling. A few bystanders were gathering – two shaggy-haired teenagers on skateboards, a middle-aged man in jogging shorts and a beard, a pair of mothers pushing matching strollers, an elderly woman pulling a shopping cart. Caldoza spoke to one of the uniformed officers first. He stepped off the curb with the officer, a scrubbed-faced kid all of twenty-four or twenty-five, and they talked in low voices. The officer did a lot of nodding.

  Finished, Caldoza moved closer to Shannon again. “All right. I’m calling crime scene.” He meant a forensics unit to look for trace evidence. Shannon and Caldoza approached the witness and introduced themselves.

  “Olivia Jackson,” the witness said, with a soft handshake. “You got here fast.”

  Caldoza smiled, showing a row of even white teeth. “I know what you’re thinking – missing-white-woman syndrome.”

  Jackson cocked her head back. “I didn’t say that.”

  Still smiling, Caldoza nodded. “I know. No, we were right down on the corner. The missing person we’re investigating, she lives right there.”

  “Well, there you go,” Jackson said. She relayed looks between Caldoza and Shannon and then, for some reason, stayed focused on Shannon. “I live right up there. Right over there – see that jade plant in the window? That’s me, third floor. I can’t sleep most nights. I try to go to bed, nine, ten o’clock. I can’t stay up for those TV shows. So late. But I heard some folks talking out here …”

  “What time was that?” Shannon asked.

  One of the two uniformed cops, a woman, also young looking, answered: “11:34.”

  Jackson shot the female cop a sidelong look, then refocused on Shannon. “Mmhmm. That’s what I said, yes. I know because I had gotten up to … nature called, and I checked the clock on the stove as I was coming back to the bed. Now, my AC unit is busted. So I’m up there on the third floor – you know what happened last week? It got so hot, a candle melted on my nightstand.�
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  Caldoza sounded impatient. “You said you heard voices …”

  “I heard voices, so I looked out. I had the fan going, you know, I’ve got three fans going, but they’re quiet. I heard a low voice, a man’s voice, then a woman’s voice, and then I just looked out. You know, as you do. You hear something, you just look. We’re social creatures. I teach in the sociology department at NYU. Race and ethnic relations.”

  Shannon smiled, listening, also watching as the other two cops finished taping off the scene. The street was lined with parked cars. She asked the witness, “Ma’am, you said he put her into a car … You mean a sedan?”

  “No. Bigger. An SUV. I think so.”

  Caldoza cocked his head. “You think so?”

  Jackson snapped a look at him. “This spot right here is in between streetlights. And I don’t go to sleep with my contacts in or my glasses on. So? I don’t know if it was an SUV for sure. I’m not sure I even know what an SUV is these days.”

  “Was it double-parked?” Shannon asked.

  “Yes. That’s right. He was parked in the street with his flashers on.”

  “You’re sure it was a man.”

  Jackson stepped back and cocked her head. She said to Shannon, “Honey, I might not be able to see well at night, but I know a man’s bullshit when I hear a man’s bullshit. I’ve lived sixty-seven years.”

  Shannon was distracted when a vehicle, a white conversion van, slowed in the street. Caldoza excused himself and trotted over. The side door slid back and three people hopped out wearing white jumpsuits. The crime scene unit.

  More bystanders had gathered. A uniformed officer remained with Shannon and the witness – the other three were spreading out to hold back the growing crowd. Shannon took the moment to scan the sidewalk for any signs. Nothing stood out. No blood, no dropped items. “Was there a struggle?”

  “No,” Jackson answered. “No, I wouldn’t say there was a struggle.”

  Shannon pushed a little: “You said you could tell a man’s bullshit …”

  “Oh, honey, I can smell it a mile away.” Jackson stared at Caldoza, who was over with the crime scene people. Maybe she’d had some recent bad luck with the male sex. Maybe a lifetime’s worth.

  “You think he was giving her a line? Is that what you mean?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “In what way?”

  “Just the way they was talking.” Jackson seemed to resent the questioning. “I don’t know, it just felt like it to me.”

  “Did it seem like they knew each other?”

  Jackson tipped her head back and forth. “Maybe. I mean, he come up on the sidewalk, right about here …” She turned around and walked toward the brick building behind her, stopped, then faced west, up the street. “Like this,” she said. “And she was coming from that way.”

  The direction of the subway station. So far, it fit.

  Jackson said, “And he’s here and she’s standing opposite, and he’s talking – he’s giving her a line – and he laughs a little. And then I … I don’t know. My mind wandered for a second. When I was paying attention again, he opened the back door of his car …” The witness walked past Shannon to the street, stepped between two cars that were there, and opened an imaginary door.

  Shannon said, “And she got in.”

  Jackson nodded. “Mmhmm. She got in, and he got in.”

  “To the front.”

  “No, to the back seat. And then he got out again, but she didn’t. And he went to the front and got in.”

  “And, ma’am, this is very helpful – but if we put you with a sketch artist …”

  Jackson was already shaking her head. “I can’t tell you what he looked like. I’ll sit with whatever artist you need me to. I’ll take whatever test. Put me on a lie detector. But all I can describe is white fuzziness.”

  “So he was white.”

  Jackson’s eyes acquired a knowing look. “Oh, he was white.”

  “Does that mean something to you?”

  “It means I’ve lived in this city all my life. Sixty-seven years. I know what a white man looks like, fuzzy or not.”

  Shannon swallowed and tried not to look at Caldoza. “Mrs. Jackson, I’m going to ask you not to talk to the press about this. Not even to any other witnesses – people in your building who might’ve seen or heard something. Okay? Doing so might contaminate the investigation. And this man – if he’s the one we’re looking for – if he knows what we know, it might change how he does things. It could make him harder to catch.” She stopped short of mentioning that having all the information out in the public could make it harder to weed out false confessions – it was clear from Olivia Jackson’s expression that she understood.

  “Did I mention I’ve lived here sixty-seven years?” Jackson’s mouth twitched with a smile.

  “You did.”

  Shannon caught a moment with Caldoza, just on the edge of the secured area. The crowd had swelled to fifty or more people.

  Caldoza said, “I’m gonna pull every camera in this whole area. Every building lobby.”

  Shannon nodded, but was doubtful. “She can’t tell if it was a Pathfinder or a Tahoe,” she said about the witness. “She can barely be sure of the color. At one point she thought green, then she said blue, and then she was pretty sure it was green again. She says they got in the back, and the car moved a little, up and down – she thought maybe they were ‘getting kinky.’ Then he got into the front and drove away, fast.”

  “This sounds like Monica and our guy,” Caldoza said. His eyes scanned the street, the buildings. He watched the people in jumpsuits and frowned. “I mean, Whitaker sent a crime scene unit. I don’t know what they’re gonna do.”

  “She didn’t try to get away,” Shannon said, still thinking about the witness’s account of Monica’s actions. “She stood there. Talking to him. Seeming unafraid. Jackson thought the man was hitting on her or making up some story.”

  “He’s a charmer, I guess.”

  “Or she thought she was safe. Or she knew him. Or she was too afraid to run.”

  “We don’t even know it’s her yet,” Caldoza said.

  Shannon gave him a look.

  Someone said, “Excuse me!” A female voice, calling from the street. Shannon picked her out: a blonde reporter pushing through the onlookers. When she reached the crime scene tape, she gave Shannon a million-dollar smile and said, “Hi. Jordan Baldacci, with the Gazette. I understand this is the site where Monica Forbes was abducted?”

  Caldoza moved in front of Shannon, cutting his arms back and forth. “No comment right now. This is an active investigation. No comment.”

  The reporter leaned around Caldoza and smiled again at Shannon. “You don’t look like NYPD.”

  Caldoza overheard. “Hey – what’s that supposed to mean?”

  Ignoring him, Baldacci asked Shannon, “Are you linking Monica Forbes and Eva Diaz? Is this about a killer targeting newswomen?”

  “Hey,” Caldoza said again. His forehead was shiny with sweat, dark spots showing under his arms. “I said this is an active …” He trailed off, looking at the phone clipped to his belt. He plucked it free. “Caldoza.” And he moved off.

  Baldacci continued to home in on Shannon. “Come on. Just something. I can help you, maybe. If this is about media professionals being targeted, shouldn’t we be warning people?”

  “We don’t know what it is yet,” Shannon said, feeling the dampness on the back of her own neck. The spreading sunlight was starting to heat up the street. She thought a moment and added, “The information given at the press conference is what stands. If anyone has any information regarding the disappearance of Monica Jane Forbes, call the hotline. You have the number?”

  “I do.” Jordan Baldacci’s mouth opened to ask another question, but something caught her attention. “Dammit,” she said, taking out her phone.

  Shannon saw it as an opportunity to break away. She wanted to talk to the witness some more. Jackson wa
s outside the crime scene tape now, a gathering of passersby around her, but her lips were pursed and her arms crossed as Baldacci homed in on her.

  Thank you for keeping quiet, Shannon thought toward Jackson.

  Someone grabbed Shannon’s arm. Caldoza pulled her close; she felt his breath against her ear.

  “Her phone is on,” he said. “It’s pinging. We’ve got a location on Monica Forbes.”

  7

  Wednesday Midday

  The Manhattan skyline loomed closer – Shannon picked out the Chrysler Building, the United Nations. The sights put them across the river from Midtown.

  Caldoza pulled over and the two of them got out. Tall grasses buzzed with insects, the air held the scent of nearby water – the East River and Newton Creek – kind of metallic, kind of sour. Where those rivers joined formed Hunters Point, a section of Long Island City.

  “108th is already here,” Caldoza said, meaning another precinct. Shannon saw the NYPD officers he was referring to combing through the grass. An abandoned-looking construction trailer sat not far off, decorated with graffiti.

  More cops arrived; doors opened and slammed shut. Caldoza checked the load of his Glock 17 and reholstered it. He popped the trunk and pulled out two bulletproof vests. “We don’t know what this is,” he explained. Shannon was happy to put hers on.

  Caldoza looked around in the bright sunshine. Behind them were two massive construction sites, with nascent buildings several stories high. Things crashed and beeped and buzzed as men in orange vests and hard hats worked the machines and tightrope-walked the steel beams. Caldoza had to raise his voice as they neared. “Plans were filed for these sites a couple of years ago. Supposed to be completed in late 2022.” More cops were moving through the sites, stopping construction workers and talking to them. Work was slowing, being halted by police. Shannon watched an unmarked car roll down Second Street and park. Detective Heinz got out.