The Julian Year

by Gregory Lamberson

  With music escaping from numerous doors, he peeked up the stairway and saw no movement.

  He climbed the stairs with his back pressed against the wall, aware that Rachel had to move slower because of her shorter height. Making as little noise as possible, they ascended the stairs to the third floor, where they faced the desired door. Morelli knew that this Eric Morano could have fled the apartment, then returned after everyone else had left. He glanced at Rachel, who wore her light brown hair in a ponytail. God, he loved her green eyes. She nodded at the door, which he eased open, allowing Dean Martin’s smooth voice to escape into the hallway.

  Morelli led the way. Paper hats, noisemakers, and confetti littered the floor. So did the body of a man wearing a suit. The carpet had soaked up a lot of blood, all of which had apparently passed through the gaping wound in Carl Mache’s neck. Stepping closer, Morelli suppressed a gasp. Mache’s head barely remained attached to his spinal column. Morano had almost sawed off his host’s head.

  Rachel snapped her fingers, drawing his attention to a broken bottle on the floor a dozen feet away. Blood covered its jagged edges. They had their murder victim and the murder weapon; now they just needed the murder suspect.

  Passing a table covered with cheese and crackers, Morelli opened a door and checked the bedroom, where coats covered a queen-sized bed. Closing the door, he watched Rachel emerge from the kitchen shaking her head. In the narrow bathroom he snapped the shower curtain open and found nothing but a stained bathtub.

  “Nobody here but us police,” Morelli said in the living room.

  Excited shouts rose from the street outside.

  Morelli strode to the window, threw the locks, and raised it. The crowd they had left outside pointed down the street and shouted. He closed the window, and they hurried downstairs and outside.

  The woman who had spoken to Morelli said, “He just ran that way.”

  Glancing in the direction of the river and the fireworks, Morelli broke into a run, Rachel’s footsteps slapping the concrete behind him. It was two blocks to the walkway overlooking the river. Halfway there, the sound of glass shattering caused him to stop and look up.

  A body clad in a nightgown flew through a fourth-floor window, dark hair billowing like a flag, and it pirouetted through the air. Morelli blinked in astonishment as the body spun to the earth, just missing a parked car, and struck the asphalt headfirst. There was a horrible snapping sound, followed by a rearranging of the body’s shape. The woman’s hair obscured her face, but Morelli didn’t need to see her eyes to know she was dead.

  A man stood at the broken window, looking down at them.

  “Look!” Rachel pointed at the end of the street.

  The sky lit up, revealing a man staring in their direction, frozen but poised to run onto the walkway. He turned and fled and the sky went dark again.

  “Morano.” When Morelli glanced up at the broken window again, the man who had been standing there had vanished.

  “You go after Morano,” Rachel said. “I’ll take this guy.”

  Morelli gave Rachel a skeptical look.

  “Go on!”

  He knew she was right. He stood a better chance of catching up to Morano, and the mysterious man upstairs was already trapped inside the building.

  “Call for backup and wait,” he said, resuming pursuit. But he knew she wouldn’t.

  Rachel ran into the foyer of the narrow apartment building and tried the inside door, which held fast. She pressed several intercom buttons before a female voice answered.

  “Police. I need to get inside the building.”

  A moment later the door buzzed and Rachel hurried inside. She took the stairs two at a time, clutching her Glock in both hands.

  On the third floor, a woman carrying a bag to the garbage chute froze when she saw her weapon.

  “Get inside your apartment.” Rachel charged up the next flight of stairs.

  On the fourth floor, Rachel faced the nearest door but heard another close behind her. The broken window was between the doors. She approached the door that had just closed, standing off to one side in case the person inside fired a gun. “Police. Open up!”

  No response.

  Taking a deep breath, she prepared to kick the door in.

  Then the door at the opposite end of the hall opened. A shadow fell over the beige wall beyond it, and a skinny man with wavy gray hair appeared. He wore black jeans, a wide belt with a silver buckle, and a denim shirt. He held a meat cleaver.

  Oh, my God, Rachel thought as the man approached her. She aimed her Glock at him. “Stop right there!”

  The man froze.

  “Drop your weapon.”

  He dropped the cleaver on the floor, where it clattered, and he raised his hands. “Now wait a minute. I just called 911 about my neighbor—”

  The door behind Rachel opened.

  Morelli chased Morano to the walkway. As many as two hundred people stood along the edge of it, watching the fireworks. Morano fled down a slight decline toward Gracie Mansion, where the mayor resided. No one paid any attention to either of them as they ran beyond a flagpole and headed into the darkness.

  With his heart thudding, Morelli planted one foot hard, stopping his momentum, and aimed his Glock. “Hold it!”

  Morano looked over his shoulder, which caused him to trip and somersault over the hard ground. When he sprang up, he crashed into a bench bolted to the ground, injuring his hip, and sprawled out on the metal railing overlooking the river. Grimacing, he got to his feet.

  Morelli advanced with his Glock raised. “Stop right there.”

  Sneering, the man spat a string of unintelligible words at Morelli.

  “What?” Morelli didn’t recognize the language, which sounded guttural. “I can’t understand you. Raise your hands and step away from the railing.”

  Morano repeated the gibberish, then climbed on top of the railing and dove off it.

  The eyes of the man who had dropped the meat cleaver widened. “Look out!”

  Pivoting on one heel, Rachel faced a man standing in the doorway of the nearest apartment. The man had short dark hair and long sideburns and held an aerosol can. Before Rachel could bring her Glock to bear on him, he triggered the spray, which burned her eyes and forced her to close them, the smell of hair spray enveloping her.

  The man slammed into her, knocking her aside, and she fell against the stairway railing. Then he jerked her Glock from her hands.

  No! Burning eyes be damned, she forced them open just in time to see the man raise her gun. The first man scrambled for his meat cleaver, and the second fired Rachel’s gun four times at point-blank range. The gunshots, deafening in the confined space, opened up holes in the first man’s chest and arms, and he glanced at his wounds before collapsing.

  Rachel’s heart pounded. The man turned back and aimed her own weapon at her. Fumbling for the Taser gun attached to her belt, she fell onto her back, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. She didn’t see the Taser dart strike the man, but she heard the distinctive clicking sound made by the electrical charge. The man spread-eagled before striking the floor hard.

  Springing to her feet, Rachel gaped at the unconscious figure, then holstered the Taser gun, retrieved her Glock, and ran over to the man who had been shot. Even before she crouched over him she knew he had been killed.

  With my gun.

  She checked his wrist for a pulse, which only confirmed her dreaded suspicion. Then she jerked the killer’s hands behind his back and handcuffed him.

  Morelli ran to the railing at the edge of the walkway and stared down at the choppy water thirty feet below. Morano failed to break the surface.

  That water’s freezing. There’s no way he survived.

  Fireworks brightened the sky and faded. From his new vantage point, Morelli saw a small tugboat chugging downtown. Flames consumed it. Across the river, an enormous housing project burned as well.

  What the hell was going on?

  Four


  “We’re coming to you live from Times Square, where three different melees appear to have broken out in the crowd. Over one million people are gathered below us, and many of them are stampeding to get away from whatever these situations are, making it impossible for police to take control . . .”

  Joe Muller came inside his wife, Judy, just as fireworks filled the sky with bright colors outside the window of their condo. He cried out and fell laughing over Judy, then rolled onto his back. “Happy fucking New Year.”

  Judy stroked his wet chest. “How about we go again?”

  Joe sat up. “We’ll see.” The sex had been spectacular, but now he was ready to shower and go to sleep.

  As he strode toward the bathroom, Judy whistled at him, and he knew his trips to the gym had paid off. It wasn’t easy finding time to stay in shape between work and the after-school activities of LoriAnn, their eight-year-old daughter.

  Ah, man, I still have to wrap LoriAnn’s birthday presents.

  Closing the bathroom door, he shook off the feeling of déjà vu. Hadn’t he just stayed up all night wrapping her Christmas presents?

  Standing in the shower, he allowed the steam to open his pores. He had to remember to drink a glass of water before he wrapped LoriAnn’s presents and another before going to bed.

  To sleep, he told himself.

  Feeling refreshed, he toweled himself dry and squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush. He had almost finished brushing when he heard what sounded like a scream. He spat out the toothpaste, rinsed again, and jerked the bathroom door open.

  Seeing a small figure on top of his wife, he snatched his towel off the sink and secured it around his waist. “LoriAnn?”

  His daughter turned in his direction. A burst of fireworks outside the window silhouetted her but illuminated Judy, who lay still on the bed, her eyes unblinking and her blonde hair and exposed breasts covered with crimson.

  What the hell?

  When the fireworks faded he saw a carving knife in his daughter’s hand, blood dripping from its gleaming blade.

  Some kind of prank, he thought, his mind a jumble.

  LoriAnn sprang off the bed and sprinted toward him, her movements no longer those of a little girl.

  Joe’s heart skipped a beat, and he slammed the door just as his daughter closed in on him.

  Her little body thudded against the other side of the wood, and she shouted a string of unintelligible but defiant words.

  Fumbling with the lock on the doorknob, he stared at the door while LoriAnn pounded on it, trying to get in, trying to get at him.

  “What the fuck?” he said.

  This was no joke. Judy was dead, murdered in their bed, and their little girl appeared to be the culprit. How on God’s green earth was such a thing possible? Why had this happened, and how the hell was he going to get out of here?

  A sound below caused him to look down just in time to see the bloody blade of LoriAnn’s knife—part of a set he had bought Judy for their anniversary—slide beneath the door. He leapt out of the way as LoriAnn moved the knife back and forth, scraping the floor.

  “LoriAnn, what the hell’s gotten into you?”

  Through the door he heard the muffled sound of LoriAnn spitting more gibberish at him, which he took to mean, I stabbed her to death, and now I’m going to do the same to you, starting with your pecker.

  The knife disappeared and LoriAnn turned silent.

  The doorknob turned.

  Joe leapt across the space to the door and seized the doorknob in both hands. Pressing his shoulder against the damp wood, he kept his feet a safe distance away. Then he dropped his towel to the floor and kicked it against the door. He didn’t know how much LoriAnn weighed, but he doubted it was more than sixty pounds. He could hold her off all night if he had to. At least he thought so until the long metal blade burst through the cheap wooden door.

  “This is Cindy Chan from News 4 New York with a breaking story. A 747 passenger jet departing from JFK Airport has reportedly crashed onto Queens Boulevard in Rego Park. We’re receiving reports of a massive explosion and extensive damage to several cars and at least one apartment building. Stay tuned to CBS’ Rocking New Year for details as they develop . . .”

  Orlando Reyes hurried across Union Square, anxious to catch the number four or five express uptown to the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. He had been stuck closing at the Regal Union Square Stadium 14 multiplex on Broadway, even after requesting the night off.

  Working in a movie theater had its advantages, like getting free comic books from his friends at Forbidden Planet in exchange for sneaking them into movies, but Orlando hated the whole bit about staying open 365 days a year. Because cinemas were at their busiest when people were supposed to be celebrating at home with their families, theater staffs had to work most holidays. Orlando didn’t care that he missed seeing the ball drop in Times Square—it was just a stupid ball, for crying out loud—but he wanted to be back at his building before all the parties wound down.

  He had just glimpsed the subway entrance when he heard firecrackers. As many as a dozen people scattered through the island of cement and trees. When he saw a uniformed police officer hurrying behind them, he figured they must have set off the firecrackers and bolted when the five-oh appeared out of nowhere. Then he saw the muzzle flash from the cop’s gun. He was shooting at people and they looked unarmed.

  The cop fired his Glock until he ran out of ammo. Then he looked at his gun, ejected its clip with cold precision, and slapped in a fresh magazine. He turned in Orlando’s direction.

  Orlando had never had any trouble with cops because he knew to avoid them. He had never run with troublemakers and had never had any reason to fear the men in blue. But he was afraid now: this cop had a look in his eyes that told Orlando he was just wrong.

  Spinning on one heel, Orlando bolted in the opposite direction. He heard the gunfire before he realized he was running in an irregular manner, and then blood sprayed out of his chest like water from a fire hydrant on a hot summer day.

  Dios Mio, I’m shot!

  He knew that if he stopped running the cop would catch up to him and shoot him in the back again, so he veered into the light, his feet pounding concrete as he reached Broadway. Cars honked around him, and a taxi headed in his direction. Covering the hole in his chest, he waved to the cabbie. Hopefully the driver wouldn’t see the blood or the cop behind him. He was in luck: the cabbie steered toward him. But something was wrong. The taxi wasn’t slowing down; it was speeding up.

  Orlando looked over his shoulder at the cop advancing on him, his gun raised. Then he turned back to the taxi just as it slammed into him at forty-five miles an hour. The last thing Orlando saw was the cabbie grinning.

  Jessie Madden scrubbed her hands with disinfectant and pulled on her surgical gloves and walked into the operating room. She had been a nurse at Lenox Hill for four years and had grown used to the night shift. She had even started looking forward to it since dating Blake, a new doctor at the hospital.

  Jessie had resisted the overtures of other doctors because her schedule was crazy, their schedules were even crazier, and life in general was complicated enough without getting involved with a coworker. But Blake had knocked her off her feet with his charm and wit, not to mention good looks, so she had thrown caution to the wind. Two months later, she had to admit she had fallen in love with the young surgeon. Her friends teased that she would be on easy street if Blake proposed to her, but she knew better: he would be paying off his med school tuition for years.

  Don’t get ahead of yourself, girl. After all, they were just dating, and their busy schedules prevented them from doing much of that. But romance was definitely in the air, and she was encouraged by their sexual chemistry.

  In the operating room, she nodded to Brian Hammer, the anesthesiologist, who gave her an indifferent nod in response. Brian had asked her out once, and she had declined his offer. Now she sensed a little bit of hostility from him.

  Oh,
my God, are we in high school?

  No matter how hard she tried to prevent complications from entering her life, she always seemed to fail.

  She glanced down at their patient, a sixteen-year-old girl who needed an emergency appendectomy. The girl was unconscious, her face still twitching with pain. Jessie raised the girl’s gown to just below her breasts and pulled the sheet up over her hips, exposing the surgical area. Then she positioned the instrument tray over her.

  The doors opened and Blake entered, clad in blue surgical garb, and Jessie’s heart beat faster. He strode to the operating table with his hands raised, and Jessie saw large wet stains all over the front of his surgical gown, not exactly the neat figure he usually presented. Leaning forward, he studied the patient for a moment. Then he glanced at Jessie.

  Her heart sank. She had long ago learned to read the expression in hospital workers’ eyes when masks covered their mouths and noses, and she saw cold detachment in Blake’s. Had she done something to anger him? This was exactly why she had avoided workplace relationships in the past.

  Blake turned his head from her in a dismissive gesture, then reached for the instrument tray.

  Really? Jessie thought. It was her job to hand him the instruments.

  Blake selected a gleaming trocar with a cannula tube attached to one end. Jessie had assisted in numerous appendectomies before. She knew he would use the trocar to make three or four incisions in the patient’s abdomen, and various instruments would enter her body through the cannula. Blake gazed at the patient, holding the trocar like a pen.

  Brian glanced at Jessie with a questioning look, and she shook her head.

  Blake raised the trocar over his head and drove it straight into the patient’s left eye.

  “Jesus Christ!” Brian leapt backward, slamming his back against the tiled wall.