Once In, Never Out

by Dan Mahoney

  Those New York drug dealers who routinely get arrested once a month better stay outta this place, McKenna thought. Things do seem simpler here and their system appears to be working fine. Maybe it is because everybody here knows exactly what to expect if they screw up. But two years?

  “It wasn’t so bad for me,” Frieda said. “Thor came to visit me all the time and was there when I got out. I did my time and earned the respect of the best man in Iceland.”

  What’s the word for this archaic Happy Days right-is-always-right and wrong-is-always-wrong outlook, McKenna wondered. Maybe jeepers? Yeah, that’s it. Jeepers! “So what did you do after you got out?”

  “Since I had already earned Thor’s respect, I was soon respected by everyone. After a while, I even respected myself, so I studied and became a minister.”

  “A minister of what?”

  “An ordained one. I’m a Lutheran minister assigned to the National Cathedral, but I don’t spend much time there. The bishop is a very busy man and he uses me as an emissary, sending me to all the synods and conferences he can’t attend himself. I get to do quite a bit of traveling, mostly to congregations in Norway and the U.S.”

  Jeepers creepers, McKenna thought. This is getting too crazy. Fortunately, Frieda thought the matter closed. She cleared the dirty dishes from the table, then went to the kitchen to make coffee and put the finishing touches on the dessert.

  But McKenna had other things to think about. Since seeing the Winthrop photos and the body of Meaghan Maher, he felt a sense of ownership about the case. After all, he reasoned, he had been hunting this killer long before the Iceland bombing.

  McKenna had formulated a tentative plan to catch his killer, but politics were ultimately going to be involved and the two detectives had different priorities that had to be addressed and resolved. Thor was chasing a political terrorist who, incidentally, had also murdered a young innocent girl. McKenna, as Angelita had pointed out, was chasing a sexual psychopath who just happened to blow people up for a living.

  McKenna also felt that if his plan was viable, he had a better chance than Thor to catch the killer. There would have to be trade-offs with the Icelanders and the British, but first he needed more information to properly make his case to Brunette and gain his approval. “Mind if I make a suggestion?” he asked Thor.

  “Certainly not. What is it?”

  “Could you ask the British to go through their files and search for any unsolved sex killings committed around the same time as an IRA bombing? Anything within, say, fifty miles of the bombing.”

  Thor just smiled, so McKenna knew at once that he had underrated the Icelander again. “I guess you’ve already done that?”

  “Yes, right after my first look at Meaghan. They told me they’d get right on it, but as you know, they regarded her as an executed accomplice. Their attitude changed after I got the Winthrop photos and I expect the results from my request shortly.”

  “You don’t think they’ve been up front with you?”

  “They’ve been helpful, but I’m not sure they’ve been completely forthright with me.”

  It had been McKenna’s impression that Hackford and Rollins had been quite enamored of Thor’s intelligence and skill. “Why do you think they might not have come clean with you?” he asked. “Policy?”

  “More a question of attitude, but I can understand how they feel. Over the years, they’ve come to regard these IRA bombings as their own province. Unofficially, they regard me as a talented tool to help fix something they’ve been working hard at for a long time.”

  Since McKenna wasn’t being completely forthright with Thor himself, he felt a pang of guilt. He decided to come as clean as he could. “I have a plan to get this killer, but it’s not fully worked out yet and I have to get my boss’s views before I can tell you more. If he goes for it, it’s possible we’ll have some disagreements.”

  “Will we work them out?” Thor asked.

  “That depends. Just how important is it to you where this killer goes to jail?”

  “Not important at all. Iceland, Canada, the U.K., or even the States. The important thing is that this monster is dead or in jail, anywhere, and not free to kill again.”

  Great answer, McKenna thought, but Thor works for other people, same as me. “Do you think Janus will share your viewpoint?”

  “Janus and I are old friends and we share the same views on police work. We both regard it as a vocation and feel that our decisions should be based on what is morally right, not on what is politically expedient.”

  “Then I was wrong. We’re not going to have any disagreements,” McKenna said. “That doesn’t mean we’re not gonna have any with Hackford and Rollins. We have to get them to forget about policy and get completely on board.”

  “You’re going to need them for this plan of yours?”

  “Probably. They must’ve had some of their people doing some heavy snooping around Timothy O’Bannion, but their concerns and ours aren’t the same. They have to be worried about maintaining good relations with the Irish government and protecting their sources, so that’s another possible reason for their lack of candor with you.”

  “Once you tell me where you’re headed, maybe I’ll speak to them about it.”

  “You mean if you agree with my plan?” McKenna asked.

  “Yes, if Janus and I agree. Matter of fact, he’ll probably be the one to speak to them. He’s got a much better mad-dog act than I do.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Frieda came back in, balancing trays like a New York waitress. The coffee was good, but the dessert was one of the best McKenna ever had. Frieda had blended soft pastry, whipped cream, a smooth cheese, and a sweet strawberry preserve into something special. “What is this called?” he asked as Frieda served him his second helping.

  Frieda told him, but he didn’t get it, so she told him again. McKenna had an ear for languages, but he recognized that the Icelandic word for what he was eating could never be pronounced correctly by him. He didn’t ask again.

  Then it was time for the real dessert, the one McKenna didn’t want to request when O’Malley had been awake and aware. McKenna wanted to see the image of the man who had killed Meaghan, a man he had sought long before, but he didn’t think O’Malley was emotionally ready to take it in.

  But there was something else nagging at McKenna’s mind, a hint of uncertainty. The two things that had made him think that the same man was responsible for the murders of Dwyer, Winthrop, and Meaghan was the peculiar, vicious nature of the torture he used and the fact that the general physical description of the killer was the same in all three cases. But if the bomber in Thor’s video didn’t match the sketch of Dwyer’s killer, then he had been going off half-cocked and his plan wasn’t feasible. Worse, it would be considered stupid by anybody with half a brain.

  Time to find out if I’m a dope, McKenna thought. “Let’s go take a look at your video,” he said to Thor.

  “Go where? I’ve got it right here,” Thor said. “He’s all I’ve been watching on TV since the bombing.”

  Thor got up and McKenna followed him into the small living room. McKenna sat on the sofa, and Thor slipped a videotape into the VCR, then turned on the TV. “This is the edited version from the Saga hallway,” Thor said. “Runs a little over four minutes, just shows him.”

  And it did, over and over, showing a stout bearded man at different times leaving the elevator and entering the presidential suite, then leaving the presidential suite and waiting for the elevator. He was shown in three different changes of clothes at opposite angles from the two hidden cameras, but he was always wearing the same cowboy hat.

  The hat cast a shadow over the killer’s face so that his features weren’t clearly defined on the videotape, but that didn’t bother McKenna. He could see enough of the man’s face to determine that although he didn’t have a beard when he had killed Dwyer, McKenna was looking at the same man. There were some small differences in his facial features b
etween the video and the sketch, but there usually were. Sketches were rarely perfect, McKenna knew.

  There was also the large difference that brought a smile to McKenna’s face. The killer had been well tagged by Meaghan. He had first been captured on video outside the presidential suite on February 25th, three days after he had killed her, but his left eye was still blackened and the bridge of his nose was still swollen.

  After a few moments it wasn’t the man’s face that captured McKenna’s attention. It was his build and the way he walked. The killer looked and walked like Bluto, after the big brute had pounded Popeye to a pulp, but before the spinach. There was something familiar about the man. The tape ended and McKenna stared at the blue screen for a minute as Thor and Frieda watched him. “Could you run it again, please?” McKenna asked.

  Thor rewound the tape and played it again, but this time Thor didn’t watch it. He watched McKenna.

  McKenna was too busy thinking as he watched the screen to notice Thor’s interest in his reaction to the videotape. By the time the tape had ended for the second time, McKenna had formed his conclusion.

  If I’m right, Ray’s very wrong, he thought. This has always been an NYPD case, and maybe our most embarrassing one ever.

  “Well? What’s on your mind?” Thor asked.

  “I think I know that man.”

  “What do you mean, you know him?”

  “If I’m right, what I mean is that I’ve met him once or twice.”

  “Where?”

  “In New York. He used to be a cop.”

  McKenna had Thor’s total interest, but he didn’t want to get into a long, drawn-out story embarrassing to the NYPD unless he was sure that the man in the video was Mike Mullen. One possible way to be sure was the Hotel Loftleidir receipt. If Thor could pull any latent prints off it, getting Mullen’s prints for a comparison was an easy matter, but a long phone call. Mullen’s fingerprint cards were still on file, but Brunette would have many questions. Again, they were questions McKenna didn’t want to answer unless he was sure. The receipt was the first order of business.

  McKenna and Thor left the apartment and walked the one block to police headquarters, although both felt like running there. It was six o’clock and the lab was locked, but Thor had the key. Thor turned on the lights and McKenna took a quick look around. It was a three-room affair, and it looked to be fairly well equipped. McKenna had seen police labs in all parts of the United States, and he thought that the one serving the nation of Iceland would be adequate for a small municipal police department in the U.S. “I guess your lab people don’t do much business here,” McKenna commented.

  “Actually, I’m a big part of the lab people you’re referring to, and I manage to stay fairly busy. Not like a lab technician working in, say, the New York City Police lab, but busy by our standards.”

  “You’ve seen our lab?”

  “Did a one-month internship there in 1989.”

  What do I say to that? McKenna wondered. A man who’s a good homicide investigator, who also handles their narcotics investigations, who also serves as their bomb squad, who is also a good crime scene technician and a good crime scene photographer, and now he’s their main lab technician? What do I say? “How did you like it?”

  “Pretty impressive, but a little chaotic.”

  “How is it that you’re qualified to work in the lab in the first place?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be? I’ve got your equivalent of a master’s degree in chemistry.”

  No more questions I don’t want to hear the answers to, McKenna told himself. No more questions.

  But McKenna couldn’t help himself. He felt compelled to say something. “You know, Thor, I’ve never felt this way before, but I’m beginning to feel a little inadequate.”

  “Why? Because I wear so many hats around here?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Well, don’t be. Try to keep in mind that while you’re working cases and solving crimes all the time, day in, day out, I’m here bored and waiting for the next one to happen. I’ve got plenty of time on my hands and the total support of my boss, so I prepare myself to do everything possible to solve the next major crime.”

  “If and when it happens.”

  Thor gave a little chuckle, the first one McKenna had heard from him. “We’re in Iceland, not heaven. They always happen, sooner or later.”

  It’s beginning to seem like heaven to me, McKenna thought. “How many cases are assigned to you a month?”

  “A month? Sometimes none, but then I work in the field as a crime scene technician or in here as a lab technician. That’s if I’m not out of the country attending some course or seminar.”

  “So you’re only assigned the major cases?”

  “Yes, I’ve become a bit of a big shot here. If it makes you feel any better, what we would consider a major crime here sometimes wouldn’t rate the assignment of a detective like yourself in New York.”

  Yeah, that’s right, McKenna thought. Major crimes, that’s me. I guess now’s not the time to tell him that I’ve been spending most of my time chasing note-passers.

  For the next hour, McKenna watched Thor at work. First, the Icelander removed the hotel receipt from the plastic bag with a pair of tongs and spread it out. Then he took the receipt into the dark room and photographed every section of it on both sides under ultraviolet light. After developing the photographs, he emerged from the dark room with a smile on his face. “We’ve got maybe five good prints on it,” he announced.

  The prints on the receipt still weren’t visible to the naked eye, but the camera had picked them up under the ultraviolet light and Thor knew just where they were on the paper. He had circled them in pencil.

  It was time for McKenna to see them, so Thor filled a flask with iodine solution, lit up a gas burner, and adjusted the setting to produce a low flame. After putting the flask on top, he waited for the heat to generate the purple iodine fumes. They rose slowly from the narrow neck of the flask and Thor held the receipt over it with the tongs, concentrating the fumes on every outlined print. Minutes later he was done and he shut the burner off.

  McKenna could see that things were going well. Five purple latent prints were clearly visible inside the penciled circles on the yellow receipt. Thor clipped the receipt to a line to dry. “Should be ready in a few minutes,” he told McKenna, then he picked up a phone and dialed.

  “Who you calling?” McKenna asked.

  “First Jónas. I want him to have whoever sorts the garbage at the Saga standing by.”

  The conversation with Jónas was in Icelandic and brief. “I’m so stupid,” he said to McKenna after hanging up. “I should have known the people sorting the garbage would be wearing gloves.”

  What? Shouldn’t I have thought of that, too? McKenna thought, but he felt better keeping that question to himself.

  Next Thor called the Hotel Loftleidir. Another conversation followed in Icelandic and Thor wrote down a name, address, and phone number before he hung up. “The desk clerk won’t be in until midnight.”

  “That’s fine by me. Before we go to any more trouble, I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  “To New York?”

  “Uh-huh. Could you give me your fax number here?”

  Thor wrote it down on a piece of paper and handed it to McKenna. Since it was Sunday, McKenna first tried calling Brunette at home. There was no answer, so he next dialed Brunette’s direct office number, but it wasn’t Brunette who picked up. It was Camilia Wright, Brunette’s secretary and one of the sharpest people McKenna had ever met. “It’s Brian, Camilia. Is Ray there?”

  “No, I don’t expect him back for another hour. He’s doing an interview for PBS.”

  That’s good news, McKenna thought. No questions until I have the answers. “Then I need you to do me a favor, Camilia. We used to have a detective named Mike Mullen. He was the guy who—”

  “I know who he was. What do you need?”

  “I need you to get
his personnel folder and fax me one of his fingerprint cards and his arrest report.”

  “You’ll have it in fifteen minutes.”

  McKenna gave her the fax number, then read her the police lab number from the phone. “Can you have Ray call me when he gets in?” he asked.

  “Will do. Is it important?”

  “I hope so, but I won’t know for sure until I get that print card.” McKenna thanked her and hung up.

  Thor took down the receipt and handed it to him. It was dry and it took McKenna only seconds to see that three of the prints were so good that he felt he could classify them himself.

  While waiting for the fax, Thor didn’t ask a single question. Instead, he busied himself with paperwork, invoicing the hotel receipt as evidence and documenting the lab procedures he had done on it. McKenna was a little chagrined to see that Thor was also quite a typist.

  Thor didn’t even look up when the fax started coming through. He continued typing while McKenna waited impatiently by the machine and even showed no interest when the transmission was complete.

  McKenna wanted to do the comparison himself, but the receipt was lying next to Thor’s typewriter. Thor must have read his mind because he reached into his desk drawer, took out a magnifying glass, and brought it and the receipt over to McKenna. Then, without a word, he sat back at his desk and resumed typing.

  Nosiness certainly isn’t one of this guy’s bad points, McKenna thought. He spent ten minutes comparing Mullen’s prints to the latents on the receipt, then he read the Mullen arrest report twice. When he was sure he knew every piece of information on it, he brought all the paper over to Thor. “We have a lot to talk about,” he said.

  “Good news or bad news?”

  “Both. The man who we’re looking for is a former New York City detective named Mike Mullen.”

  “Why is he a former detective?”

  “He was fired after he was arrested in 1991 for shaking down quite a few high-priced call girls. He eventually jumped bail and hasn’t been seen in New York since, as far as we know.”

  Thor’s next question was so on the money that even McKenna was surprised. “Where was he assigned?”