by HN Wake
Johns frowned.
“Scenario C: This Toro owes money, and the bad guys are watching him. The bad guys follow Toro to Micah’s. Once Toro leaves, they decide to hit up Micah themselves. They go in on their own. Later. It ends up in a hit.”
Both Johns and Rodriguez shrugged.
She shifted on her feet. “I’m not sure these make sense, but Toro is at the center of each one.”
“How’s the girl fit?” Johns asked.
“It fits any of these scenarios. Toro knows Hettie is rich. After Micah is dead, he or they go for Hettie instead. Holding her for ransom.”
“Is there a ransom request?”
“Not yet.”
Johns cast a glance to Rodriguez. “The scenarios are…thin…but plausible.”
Rodriguez said softly, “Either way it went down, Toro sounds like a lead. What’s the address?”
“Over on East 161 and Trinity Avenue.”
Johns nodded. “Let’s go find him.”
The unmarked NYPD sedan smelled like stale cigarettes and melting plastic. The black seats were sticky against her jeans. Outside, six towering and characterless buildings circled a cement drive and a dusty park. In an empty basketball court, the backboards barely held on to mangled baskets. Cheap flowered curtains ruffled from a few open windows. Having been in other projects, Dom imagined raised voices through thin walls, hallways stinking of urine, and stairwells dark because of smashed lightbulbs. The poor didn’t have a lot of options.
Across the street, patrons straggled in and out of a local bodega, Fernandez Grocery, whose window display was jammed with toiletries and Spanish-covered tin cans. A neon sign Advertised twenty-four-hour lottery tickets. The poor didn’t have a lot of options.
This part of the Bronx was a long way from Washington Square Park. Had Micah told Hettie that his friend Toro had reemerged? Had Micah asked Hettie for money?
From the driver seat, Johns’ elbow sat on the window ledge catching sun. Calm dark eyes watched her in the rearview mirror. “You been a Fed a long time?”
“Just over ten years,” she said it quickly. She didn’t like talking about herself.
“Mostly kidnapping?”
“Mostly domestic.”
“No counter-terrorism?” His eyes watched her.
“No, I stayed away from that.”
Rodriguez jerked his chin in agreement.
“Yeah, mm-hmm. I feel you. Too heavy these days. What’s the pension situation at the Bureau these days?”
“It’s good if you stick it out twenty years.”
“You gonna go desk jockey at some point?”
He wanted to know if she would move away from field work as she advanced. She hadn’t thought about it too much. She had given herself another five years before making a decision about a less dangerous specialty. “Not sure yet.”
“Family?” Johns grinned.
Law enforcement types always asked if she was married. What they really wanted to know was if she was sleeping with anyone. The personal lives of female field agents were a source of constant curiosity. “No, uh-uh.” Dom kept her private life private.
“Mm-hmm. I’m married. Great lady. Keeps me on my toes. Count my blessings every morning she stays with me. Tough on the wife. And the four girls.”
Dom had guessed five kids. She grinned to herself. “All girls?”
Johns nodded.
Rodriguez was keeping an eye on passing pedestrians.
“You got a picture of the vic’s girlfriend?” Johns raised his eyebrows “The missing girl?”
She slid out her phone, opened a photo of Hettie, and passed it to him.
He stared at the photo. “When she go missing?”
“We think Sunday.”
“Same day as the boyfriend got shot?”
She nodded.
“Shame. She’s got a gentle look about her.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Rodriguez straightened against the seat and Johns followed his gaze. Across the street a lean black man with a nappy head turned the corner and was walking toward them on abnormally long legs like a daddy-long-legs spider.
Johns said, “They call him Gust, as in a gust of wind will knock him over. Round here, that’s not a compliment.”
Through the open window, Rodriguez blasted a short whistle, and Gust glanced before turning on his heels and heading in the opposite direction. Johns turned the key on the ignition, and they trailed at a distance.
Tires crunched over crumbling cement as the car rolled down an alley and came to rest. A train clacked in the distance.
Gust, painfully skinny with a ropey neck, dirty hair, and dazed eyes, leaned into the passenger side window by Rodriguez. “Yo yo yo. What’s happin’ my bacon?” The reference to cops was unoriginal.
Johns leaned back against his seat. “Gust, we need you for a second. Hop in.”
A lanky arm yanked opened the door and rangy legs and body odor filled the back seat. Examining Dom, Gust licked cracked lips. “Hello, fine filly.”
Johns reached out and snapped his fingers inches in front of Gust’s eyes. “We’re looking for a guy named Toro. Kelvin Pena. Lives up in here.”
Ignoring Johns, Gust sniffed the air around Dom. “Who have we here?”
Johns cleared his throat. “Just a friend.”
Gust’s teeth were rotten and his breath was rank. “You a lady cop?”
“She’s a social worker. Looking for a lost patient.”
“I love me some official-type pussy.”
Dom didn’t blink. She heard a lot worse. Had used a lot worse.
“Gust.” Johns barked. “Shut your mouth before I come back there and shut it for you.”
“Easy, bacon, easy. Just ’preciatin’ the view.”
“So you know this Toro or what?”
Rodriguez held up two twenties and waggled them over the seat.
Two dirty, spindly fingers pincered the cash and slid the money in a front jean pocket. Gust’s hand stayed against his crotch and he jiggled his eyebrows at Dom. “Sure, man. You come to me cause I know everybody up in here.”
“Talk to me,” Johns said.
“Honduran. Two-bit. He used to think he gangsta, but he ain’t. Wanted all thirteen but didn’t cut it.” He meant MS-13, a heavy-duty international gang in New York made up of mostly Latinos.
“So he’s not gang?” Johns asked.
“Nah, he didn’t cut it. They mostly ignored him.”
“What’s he do now?”
“Two-bit shit. I dunno.”
“I need to find him.”
“That’s all I know.”
“I need you to know more.”
Gust let out a long breath, rancid and dead. “Yeah, yeah, don’t get your bacon bits all in a rumble. Hold on.” He pulled out a clam phone and dialed a number. He spoke in a low conspiratorial voice to the other end. “Yo, you know that Toro Pena dude, that two-bit dude?” They could hear the other voice through the phone before Gust snapped it closed. “He doin’ somethin’ out in Port Morris. Started up a few weeks ago.”
Port Morris in Southern Bronx was a partially abandoned port with barren parking lots scattered with decrepit buildings and protected by rusted chain link fences. It would be a good place to hide a hostage—not many witnesses to see her arrival or to hear her screams. Adrenaline raced up Dom’s spine.
Johns asked, “What’s the something he’s doing?”
“My guy didn’t know.”
“Where’s he doing it?”
Gust licked his lips at Dom, momentarily distracted.
Johns raised his voice. “Gust, Port Morris ain’t small.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Gust grinned at him. “I’d say it’s big. Big as a twenty.”
Rodriguez handed back another twenty. With his right hand, Gust revisited the pincer move, slid the bill into the pocket, and lingered over his crotch. His grimy left hand slithered to Dom’s knee.
She snatched Gust’
s pinkie, wrenched it out, and jammed it back.
Gust’s eyes bulged. “Ow, ow, ow!” he yelped.
Nobody touched her without permission. Nobody. She crushed down on the finger.
“Ow, ow, ow!”
Johns glanced into the rearview, raised his eyebrows.
“Ow, ow, ow!” Gust howled.
We. Do. Not. Have. Time. For. This. Hettie could be bound and gagged in some desolate cinder block building in Port Morris. She relieved the angle but held fast to the pinkie.
Gust whimpered, “My guy said he’s heard Toro is in one of ’dem old buildings behind the FedEx.”
She dropped the pinkie.
Gust cradled the hurt hand against a hallowed chest. “You broke my finger.”
Nah I didn’t. I could have, but I didn’t. She gazed past him.
“Fucking cunt,” Gust hissed.
Johns turned the ignition key and barked, “Out, Gust.”
Gust threw open the door and rolled out of the car.
Johns slammed on the gas, the tires spun on the crushed cement as they peeled from the alley.
15
Under a sinister blue moon, the buildings of Port Morris and their night shadows stood across the empty stretch like scattered tombstones in a forgotten cemetery. Enormous warehouses loomed among derelict buildings long ago ransacked by New York winters and homeless drifters. Two mammoth steel bridge cranes loomed over the East River waterfront, a funereal testament to a once thriving manufacturing hub.
In the back seat of the NYPD sedan, Dom pressed the phone to her ear.
Lea said, “It’s the only building still standing within fifty feet of the new Fed Ex depot. It appears to have been part of a bankrupt shipping company. The lot butts up against the back perimeter of the Fed Ex warehouse. Let me know when you get to the alley. You’ll want to take the left down the alley.”
Johns slowed the car and squinted into the gloom.
“I see it,” Dom said. “Johns, take the left down that alley.”
Lea said, “In a hundred yards the alley ends at a gravel road. The gravel road leads to a back entrance to the east of the building. The main entrance is to the north. To the west is the Bronx Kill stream so nobody is exiting out the west side.”
Headlights beamed over broken cement and piles of forgotten debris. At the end of the alley, a gravel road appeared.
Dom said, “I think we got it.”
“You want backup?”
“No, there are three of us and we gotta go fast. Hettie may be in there.”
“Copy that.” Lea rang off.
Johns extinguished the head lights and rolled slowly onto the gravel road leading to the lot’s east entrance. In the gloom, a beaten red Toyota Corolla and a white Audi were parked in front of a one-story cinder block box building. Tall weeds and a solitary scraggly bush had grown through the cracked cement of the lot. Two darkened windows, their glass long ago broken by vandals, watched guard. Johns rolled to a stop and killed the engine. “We recon for twenty, let it get darker, then we go in.”
Please let Hettie be here. Cold glided through the empty space in Dom’s chest. It had been two days since Hettie was taken. If she was inside, she would be bound and gagged. She would have defecated on herself. She would be exhausted past the point of crying. Please don’t let Hettie be here.
Johns voice was calm. “I’m thinking there is one outer room. Those are the busted windows and the reason for no light. My guess is there’s a back room with no windows where they have light, which means a dark hallway.” They would be breeching, hard and fast, through the dark and into bright light. It was a potentially blinding scenario. “Not good. But it’s what we’ve got.”
In the shadows of the car, Rodriguez nodded solemnly.
“I’m gonna roll up fast and quiet,” Johns whispered. “No headlights. Leave the car doors open so they don’t hear us. I’ll take point. Rodriguez behind. Walker, you pull up rear. We keep as quiet as we can until we’re all the way in.”
“Affirmative,” Dom said.
Rodriguez nodded.
“Guns drawn. Once in the light, I’ll bank left. Rodriquez, you bank right.” Johns would have a clear shot as he headed into the back room. Rodriguez would wait until Johns jumped left and out of his line of sight.
Her voice was strong and decisive. “I’ll stay center.” She would wait for Rodriguez to bank right to get a clear line of sight. “If he’s got a gun, I don’t care who takes the shot. My priority is getting Hettie.”
There was movement at the front of the building. Dom’s adrenaline surged. A single black male exited and walked to the Audi. The car’s interior light flashed across a red track suit as he dropped into the driver’s seat. The car’s headlights flashed before it rolled back and turned to the north entrance. The beam shot across the light to their position.
Johns hissed, “Down.”
They slid below window level. When the Audi’s headlights flashed through the sedan, the adrenaline buffeted against Dom’s neck.
Dark descended into the NYPD sedan, and they sat up.
Johns whispered, “Let’s go now. There’s only one car.” He keyed the ignition, dropped the gear shift, and rolled the dark sedan onto the crumbling asphalt. They rolled slowly to the silent cinder block building. Ten feet from the building, Johns braked, killed the engine, cocked his gun, and whispered, “Keep it tight, stay frosty.”
They rose from the car, guns high, and sprinted at the front door in a single line—Johns, Rodriguez, Dom.
The first room was empty. Ancient wind-blown trash on flattened cardboard boxes littered the floor. From down a single hallway, a light appeared. Hispanic rap music blared. Glass cracked under Dom’s soft work shoes. Please let Hettie be here so I can take her home.
At the hallway, Johns checked over his shoulder. Dom glanced back across the dark lot. It was clear. She tapped Rodriguez’s shoulder who tapped Johns. A high-pitched Spanish rapper wailed against a thumping staccato beat.
They raced toward the light.
“Freeze! NYPD. Freeze motherfucker!” Johns’ huge shoulders cleared into the light, and he banked left.
Rodriguez banked right.
Johns barked, “Freeze, motherfucker! Hands in the air!”
Dom bolted into the light, trained the gun at the room’s center, dropped into a low double- handed stance, and blinked to clear the spots from her eyes.
Sitting in front of a battered card table, a gaping Kelvin Pena waved both hands overhead.
Dom scanned left and right. Nothing. Pena was alone in the ten-by-ten-foot square room. Along four walls, tall metal shelving units were crammed with laundry detergent, infant formula, cigarette cartons, and liquor. The hideout was a cache of stolen staples.
Johns yelled, “Keep those hands up.”
Pena waved both arms, his face in shock.
There was no Hettie. Just fucking groceries. Fucking black market groceries.
She let the Glock drop to her side.
16
Outside the door of the ornithology department, Mila heard only silence from the other side. It was 9:06 pm. Most if not all of the staff should have gone home. She should have gone home too. She should have gotten on her bike, peddled south, grabbed a slice of pizza—pepperoni and green peppers, slightly burned—at Prince Street pizza, and found a good book to chill with at home. It was exactly what she did most evenings. It was a clear pattern with very few surprises.
But earlier in the day, by the cafeteria’s coffee counter, she heard a museum staffer describe a frantic conversation between Mr. Blaulicht and the Van Burens. Something happened to Hettie’s boyfriend, and there were signs Hettie may have been kidnaped. Anxiety jolted Mila’s gut. She had to do something. She couldn’t sit back and let something horrible happen to yet another person within her existential orbit. And didn’t she discover the gala video with the ominous protestor throwing blood on Mrs. Van Buren? What if that was related to these new crimes? It was almost
as if destiny had looped her into proximity of the missing Hettie case.
Pushing into the quiet lab, chlorine and formaldehyde swamped her nose. She liked the variety of smells at the museum—the mustiness of the library, the antiseptic cleanliness of the planetarium, and the hint of mildew near the reptile displays. In fact, she liked most things about the museum including the research assignments, the analysis and statistics, and the awkward discussions with scientists like Hettie.
Hettie’s workstation sat against the far wall under dozens of stuffed birds. A small lamp bathed the top of the desk in a soft glow as she sat in Hettie’s chair and hovered her hand over the space bar. She should be home eating slightly burned pizza. She pressed the space bar. With a whirr, computer woke from sleep mode and the screen came to life. She pulled back her hand. Maybe tonight she would go wild and order the artichoke, spinach, and feta slice.
It started with a simple internet search of three key words. Hettie Van Buren.
Hettie Van Buren is the great-granddaughter of a formidable figure, the oil magnet Klaus Lowrance. Originally from Germany, Klaus Lowrance had arrived in the United States in 1850 with money to burn. In 1860, he was among the early investors in oil refinery equipment manufacturing in the tiny town Titusville, Pennsylvania. Two years later, after the discovery of oil in Titusville, the population exploded to 10,000, and good ole Klaus made out like a bandit. He became a millionaire almost overnight.
In 1928, Klaus’s eldest son, Herbert Lowrance, ascended to the family throne as CEO and Chairman of Frontier Oil, moved the company to Philadelphia, and began the expansion of the empire. Around this period, he broke ground on Titus Hill, the family mansion in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb called Gladwyne. Photos of the property showed the peaked roofs of an enormous home behind a grove of trees and an iron fence. According to press clippings and black-and-white press photos, Herbert was a thin man with a heavy mustache who had chosen a buxom brunette bride. They produced two offspring, a boy and a girl, but the boy died tragically at the age of five from tuberculosis.