by Gary Haynes
Several of the students’ jaws slackened. Wide-eyed, others half-laughed. A few nodded in agreement. Gabriel felt sure they’d seen his interview on CNN, or had been told about it.
She must have been listening, he thought, unless someone had passed her a note. He didn’t know or care. Bur he could tell she was already regretting her rudeness. Her head was bowed and she looked sheepish as she shuffled her papers.
He felt like exploding into a rant, but held it together and said, ‘That’s all for today.’
The students closed their electronic notebooks and coloured files and began to leave.
‘Miss Cox, do you have a moment?’ he said.
She looked around at the young women with her and whispered something to them. He saw them smirk.
‘Sure.’
She walked over to him. When her near anorexic body was about two feet away, Gabriel rubbed his left shoulder.
‘I’ll let that pass on this occasion,’ he said.
She bit the side of her plump lower lip and wouldn’t make eye contact.
‘If it happens again, we’ll see what the dean has to say. Do we understand each other?’
She looked up at him now, her green-blue eyes fiery.
She said, ‘The dean is friends with my father.’
She left, her gait betraying the nature of an inherited ego. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to respond, so he let it go.
He switched off his laptop, gathered up his books, his thoughts returning to the Watson case. He knew that after Hockey’s arrest by the FBI, he’d been taken before a magistrate judge for his initial appearance and detention hearing. He’d been refused bail on an unsurprising ground: a danger to the community. This was due both to his suspected involvement in the Watson murders and his previous criminal convictions.
But he hadn’t been incarcerated at a usual pre-trial detainee facility, such as the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Park Row, lower Manhattan, known as MCC. He was being held at a federal prison in Upstate New York. The federal public defender had told Gabriel that after some debate between the FBI and the Mayor’s office, it had been agreed that Hockey would be sent to a high-security correctional facility. Like the late Mrs Watson, the mayor was Jewish, and he’d encouraged the allegation of a hate crime.
Gabriel had read about Hockey’s tattoos. There was the expected swastika and the animal symbol of Nazi Germany, the official party eagle, the Parteradler. There was even an inked profile of the Führer on his bicep. Above his right wrist were the twin sig runes of the Waffen-SS, and a death’s head in the same position on the left one. Gabriel had guessed it was worn as a homage to both the cap badge and collar insignia worn by the SS-Totenkopfverbände, the concentration camp guards. He’d done hours of research already.
Gabriel hadn’t met Hockey yet, and he was unsure how he should act when he did. But what he did know for sure was that in a federal prison, the Nazi tattoos could save Hockey’s life, rather than put him at risk. In that fractious realm, he would be protected by the white supremacists.
Walking across the dusty podium towards the bank of desks, his newfound duplicity began to burden him again. His breath quickened, but there was nothing that could deter him.
7
FBI Headquarters, Washington DC, the next day.
Special Agent Carla Romero specialized in investigating instances of female kidnappings, often perpetrated with a violent sexual motive. She worked closely with county sheriffs’ departments and state-wide law enforcement agencies, with a zealot’s enthusiasm. She helped enrol the terrified victims into counselling programmes when she wasn’t faced with the tragedy of recovering the resultant corpses. She’d joined the FBI three years ago, after completing a master’s degree in international law and spending a further four years working for NATO in Brussels.
The FBI building at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue was a precast structure built in the Brutalist style, with bronze-coloured windows and netting covering the façade of the tower section, due to the crumbing concrete. She entered the main concourse at 9.02 am. Passing the blue and gold flag and the FBI seal on a plaque on the wall— Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity — she turned right.
She often wore her ebony hair in a French plait, as was the case this morning. She was five eleven in her flat shoes. ‘Junoesque’, she’d heard some of her colleagues say, and she hid her curves under loose-fitting trouser suits. She bought a coffee from a vending machine and entered a secure lift, heading for a section chief’s third-floor office. He’d called her encrypted smartphone an hour before and had told her to meet him there, although he hadn’t informed her why.
She stepped out and took a few sips of the bland liquid. She left the disposable cup on a stone bench and straightened her charcoal-grey jacket, reminding herself that the chief had a reputation for being a hard-ass.
*
Carla and Section Chief George Hester were sitting on chrome chairs at a rosewood conference table. The grey floor tiles looked freshly spray-buffed, the pools of natural light there phosphorescent. They’d been talking about the Watson case for a few minutes. She’d taken notes, which by the look on Hester’s face now, he considered a little amateurish rather than diligent, and she stopped, leaving her thick fountain pen on the open legal pad.
What Hester had called ‘an abhorrent DVD’ had been recovered by the Bureau after they’d searched Johnny Hockey’s flat, following his arrest. He’d described it in some detail and she’d been conscious of him studying her face as he’d done so. He’d said that one of Jed Watson’s prints was on it. Near the centre, probably left there when he’d pressed it into the tray. The contents had been such that Watson’s laptop had been hurriedly scrutinized by specialist FBI cryptographers. Extensive amounts of vicious pornography had been stored on the hard drive, albeit of the legal variety.
‘So, you’re saying the DVD recovered from Hockey’s place had to be the male vic’s?’ Carla said.
Hester nodded and picked up a mug of coffee, sipping at it. ‘Are you sure I can’t get you one?’
‘I’m fine, thank you, sir.’
Hester was an olive-skinned 45-year-old, with thick black hair and a waistline wider than his shoulders. He wore a dark-blue pinstriped suit and a red tie, held in place by a gold tiepin. He looked Mediterranean, but Carla had heard that his family originated from Donegal, in Ireland.
He said, ‘Given what we now know about Watson, I’d say the DVD was his for sure. But that doesn’t mean Hockey will be convicted of a double murder. Don’t get overly concerned with that. I need you to find out who the female victim in the DVD was, assuming it’s not a fake, and where Watson got it from.’
His lower lip curled back over his bottom teeth, as if he found it difficult to speak now. She thought about asking him if he suspected there were more of the same, a perverse trend, but left it. She guessed he believed the DVD was real, that the victim had been kidnapped, possibly trafficked, before her murder on camera. She knew for sure that he didn’t want it replicated. Why else would she be here?
‘You think Mrs Watson knew about it?’ she said.
‘I doubt it.’
He rubbed his forehead with his palm, a gesture that said: what does it matter now?
‘Read up on Hockey. He has a past. It’s all in the file.’ He tapped the file in front of him with a gnarled index finger. ‘I want you to go down to the New York field office. Speak with the agents on the ground. Then pay Hockey a visit in prison. Get a feel for things first off.’
‘I will, sir.’ She put her pen into her suit jacket pocket, flipped the pad closed.
He slid the file over to her. ‘Apart from Hockey’s previous pre-sentence reports and record, there are photos taken from the DVD. You’ll report to me on this one and I’ll report to the floor above,’ he said.
‘And my team?’
‘There isn’t one. This is special investigation authorized by Deputy Director Johnson. You’ll work alone.’
‘I’m
not sure I understand, sir.’
‘There’s no dead body. No remains of one. We need to know if there’s a trail. Your other duties have been reallocated. You have three months to come up with answers. If you don’t find any, you’ll resume your normal duties.’
She pinched her brow with her thumb and forefinger, unsure how she felt about that.
He looked towards the windows, frowning, and when he turned back, he looked sorry for her. ‘Just to warn you, Agent Romero, the photos are tough viewing.’
‘Don’t worry, sir.’
‘I mean… the toughest.’ He breathed out and scratched his forehead. ‘I told a rookie once that although older agents sometimes appeared cynical to the bone, no one got used to seeing dead bodies, despite the black humour. And if they did, it was probably time to do something different, like become a plumber.’ He nodded, as if to himself. ‘This one’s weird. That’s all I’m trying to say.’
Carla thought that he didn’t deserve his tough reputation.
*
In the HQ’s subterranean parking lot, Carla peeled a banana, a late breakfast, as she sat in her dark blue SUV. She owned the vehicle, although she was compensated for mileage and wear and tear. It had been fitted with standard Bureau accessories: an electronic siren, a secure radio and emergency lights. It was a 150 mile drive to the field office, one that would take her the best part of four hours. She set the sat nav for 26 Federal Plaza, NYC, between Broadway and Lafayette Street, before looking down at the file in her lap. The name Jonathan Lincoln Hockey was typed on a white sticker in the right-hand corner. Thinking the sixteenth president’s immortal soul wouldn’t care for that, she opened the file.
A minute later, having viewed all the photographs taken from the DVD, she bent over, almost gagging, her hand grasping the open door. She sat upright, composed herself as best she could, and wiped the traces of salvia from her mouth with a scented tissue. The photographs were unlike anything she’d seen, and she’d seen plenty. Following the images of relative calm, there’d been a heart-rending close-up of the victim’s tears. The female had been attacked then, the level of violence both sadistic and controlled; it was as if she’d been sacrificed. But sacrificed to what, or why, she had no clue. She’d figured the Asian-looking girl had been no more than eighteen years old.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ she said.
She knew now why Hester had been kind to her.
8
Manhattan, the next day.
Gabriel walked across the pink paving slabs of the little plaza. The confluence of the Hudson and East rivers in New York Harbor added a brackishness to the warm air that was otherwise dominated by the scent of Russian sage in concrete planters. His office was on the eighth floor of a pristine office building and the morning sunlight glinted off the burnished copper cladding and emerald plate glass. It was near City Hall Park, which marked the outskirts of the financial district on the southern tip of the island.
He entered the mirrored lift and scrutinized his near-gaunt face, knowing he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything but the Watson case. Usually, his clients were accused of embezzlement, money laundering, insurance fraud, insider trading, trademark infringement. The list got longer as technology got smarter. But none of them was a violent criminal like Johnny Hockey.
Connie O’Brien was sitting behind a semi-circular aspen desk, with the translucent glass front of Gabriel’s office about three yards to her rear. She’d been with him since he qualified. A well-groomed woman in her late fifties, she always wore fashionably large glasses, her dyed blonde hair held up in what Gabriel viewed as a permanent bun. She dressed well and was attractive, with ample lips and a toned physique that made for a feline quality in movement.
‘Hi, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘You’ve got five messages.’
‘Just the five?’ he said.
He’d walked into the reception area from the lift. He picked up a copy of the New York Times from the circular table, scanned the front page, feigning interest for a reason he failed to comprehend.
‘Only telling you,’ she said.
‘I need coffee. My mouth tastes like cat litter.’
He glimpsed her pouting, without a smidgeon of sexuality. Something she did as a precursor to scolding him for not calling a client back quickly enough, or when she caught him pacing his office, berating himself.
‘If you ask nicely,’ she said.
‘I need coffee, please,’ he said, cracking a false smile.
She shook her head. ‘And he teaches at Yale.’
He pushed open the glass door and walked into the sparingly-furnished office, which offered a view of other, larger office buildings. The only indication that this was a lawyer’s office was a copy of the state statute book on his cherry wood desk. He looked fondly at the one item that wasn’t functional, a piece of abstract art on the wall, a limited-edition print of Robert Delaunay’s Windows Open Simultaneously. The original hung in the Tate Modern, London. He recalled that Connie had called it ‘pretty and inoffensive’. He’d hated that, but had kept it to himself.
He took off his pigeon-grey suit jacket, placed it over the back of a swivel chair, and sat down. He removed his tie and picked up the pile of papers that Connie had printed off from an email attachment. It had been sent by the court-appointed federal public defender.
There was no circumstantial forensic evidence against Hockey, such as a hair or a strand of clothing. The DVD wasn’t anywhere near direct evidence of guilt, although a half-decent federal prosecutor wouldn’t find it hard to convince a jury that it was somehow credible. There was some flimsy hearsay, based on a statement by the Watson family, that claimed an associate of Hockey had said he’d done it for sure. But the case was in its infancy and with the mayor’s involvement, he guessed it was still receiving special attention from the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.
The public defender had written that Hockey was still denying all knowledge of the DVD, adding that its contents had been described as disturbing. Hockey was still maintaining his innocence in terms of the murders, too. Gabriel hadn’t seen the DVD yet but knew he must. He’d already decided that Jed Watson wasn’t the perpetrator of the crimes he imagined he’d find there. His kind didn’t go in for the expression of their perversion in real life, or even via the all-but-inaccessible depths of the Internet. Email and credit card payments could be traced. The type of person who bought DVDs like the one obliquely described, didn’t risk anything coming back on them. They were strictly voyeurs, although without their patronage, there would be much less of such trade — virtually none. But there were always exceptions. Weren’t there?
Besides the DVD, an insurance assessor had reported that several expensive antiques and ten pieces of high-end jewellery were missing from the Watsons’ apartment, presumed stolen. Each item was small enough to be concealed in a pocket. The words red herrings came to Gabriel’s mind, but he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the items represented the primary motive, at least at this stage of the investigation.
Hockey’s previous convictions, and the summary of his juvenile pre-sentence and psychological reports, were depressing reading. Hockey’s father had been a chronic alcoholic and died when his client was just twelve years old. His mother had taken to crystal meth, which she financed by street prostitution.
As a footnote, the public defender stated that Hockey’s girlfriend, May, had been released from FBI custody without charge — for now, at least. She had a record, but it consisted of misdemeanours. There was nothing to indicate the level of violence used in the Watson murders. Besides, she had an incontestable alibi for the evening of the killings, which had already been verified by CCTV footage.
Pushing out the chair, he stood up, turned and peered out of the window. The sky was the colour of wet clay. A heavy shower had started, and the rain ran down the pane like a grieving mother’s tears. He felt a sudden ambivalence about Jed Watson’s death. But it failed to shock him, although he was dete
rmined not to allow the emotion to remain, not even in the most secret cavern of his heart.
He heard the office door open and Connie’s footsteps on the carpet.
‘Just put it on the desk, Connie. And thank you.’
‘You OK, Gabriel?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, lying.
He’d learned that the day which haunted a person the longest, began like any other. There was no harbinger, no sensory forewarning or physical omen of what was to come. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred in the minutes or seconds leading up to it. The ruinous event just happened.
9
FBI New York field office, the same day.
The female special agent-in-charge, or SAC, one of six at the field office who answered to the resident assistant director, was rangy, with a pasty complexion. The senior special agent with her was Hank Dawson. He was running the FBI investigation into the federal felonies thought to have been perpetrated by Johnny Hockey, and was the man Carla had driven nearly four hours to speak with.
‘Take a seat, Agent Romero,’ he said.
Hank was bull-shouldered, with short, corn-coloured hair and ruddy cheeks. His eyes were almost turquoise, and sepia at the corners, as if he hadn’t slept much of late. She rejected the notion that he overindulged in alcohol. There was a rawness about him, an integrity.
‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ the SAC said. ‘Got a telecom in five. Good to meet you, Agent Romero.’
‘You too, ma’am.’
The woman left.
The room was on the small side, but neat. They sat at a blow-moulded plastic desk. Carla thought she could smell a hint of disinfectant and wondered briefly if Hank’s reaction to the photos from the DVD had been the same as her own. But now she thought that improbable, given his years of service. She noticed a framed photograph of him, and what she took for his smiling family outside a lakeside cabin, on the right-hand side of the desk. She saw him glancing at it, too.