by Joe Conlan
Daniel didn’t leave Annie’s apartment until well after 10:00pm. He wanted to be sure he sobered up before he got behind the wheel of a car and potentially faced Deborah. The idea of what transpired was somewhat surreal to him. Yes, he was sexually attracted to Annie, but he saw himself as a man of exceptional discipline. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what made him so weak. At least that was what his guilt-ridden conscience was hypocritically coercing him to believe now that the deed was done. It was going to be a difficult struggle to stifle his shame and keep a secret from Deborah. Normally, they were brutally honest with each other. If he had any intentions of making his marriage work, she must never know.
Earlier in the week, he feared his wife would ask him to end his friendship with Annie. Now, he might have to consider the possibility on his own. It wouldn’t be easy to completely cut her out of his life. To allow the maintenance of the status quo could and probably would risk his marriage. His boys were his life and he took his nuptials very seriously being raised a devout Catholic. He had to recognize the chance he and Annie could get weak again. It wouldn’t be fair to Deborah to place himself in that position.
Just when everything seemed to be falling into place at work, with life in general, he had to go and complicate things. It seemed to be a recurring theme since his brother’s accident. He wondered if he invited it. One of the FBI shrinks tried to tell him once that guilt was his comfort zone. It sounded like a bunch of psychobabble shit to Daniel at the time. Since then, he had seriously contemplated whether the psychologist hit on something. Now, he had a bunch of hard questions to answer. Was his love for Deborah strong enough to sustain the marriage? Could he be happy staying with her for the rest of his life? Was it good for the boys for him to work through the relationship if the necessary spark was lacking? Was he still in love with Annie? Why was it so difficult to completely cut her out of his life? Thinking about all the issues was giving him a premature hangover. His head was pounding. Things weren’t going to get any better.
Daniel parked his car in his allotted space in front of his condominium. It was almost 10:30 and the kids were most likely asleep. He wondered whether Deborah was still awake. It didn’t take long to get his answer. She was standing right behind the door when he opened it. He tried to greet her with a kiss but she avoided his lips, which pecked at the air beside Deborah’s cheek.
“Daniel, where the hell were you? Why didn’t you call me to let me know you would be this late? And why do I smell alcohol on your breath? Did you actually drive?”
“Hold on, Annie. One question at a time.”
“Don’t take that tone with me. I’m not the one who walked in at 10:30 at night with alcohol on my breath after spending time at my ex-girlfriend’s house. And my name’s not Annie.” A tear forged a course down her right cheek as she turned to storm back to their bedroom.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I made the mistake of having a little bit too much wine on an empty stomach. I didn’t eat anything all day before I went to Annie’s place. I let her talk me into having a couple of glasses of wine. Then, somehow, by the time we were done looking at the tapes, I downed three or four. I had to wait a while to sober up before I could drive home.”
Deborah stopped at the top of the foyer steps with her back to him to listen to what he had to say. Without turning around she responded, “Gimme a fuck’n break, Daniel. Somehow? What the fuck are you doing drinking at her place anyway? I guess it was the wine that kept you from picking up the phone and letting me know what was going on so I didn’t worry. That’s a poor excuse. I’m really upset with you right now. I think you should sleep in the guest room.”
Daniel knew he was in deep trouble. Deborah rarely used the “F” word and never in their nine years of marriage had she banished him from their bedroom. “Sweetie, I completely understand why you’re angry with me. I was an idiot. I should’ve called. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get to that point. Please forgive me.”
“Daniel, I’m not angry, I’m furious. You’re going to have to give me a chance to cool down. The guest bed has fresh linens. Goodnight.”
Daniel was left standing alone as Deborah stomped nosily up the steps. He hoped it wouldn’t take her too long to get over this though he deserved the most severe of punishments. He didn’t even want to consider what her reaction might be if she found out what actually happened. Most likely, their marriage would be destroyed. It was his intention to do everything in his power to avoid that. He cared for her too much and couldn’t allow the boys to suffer through their separation and divorce.
Chapter 12
It was the Tuesday evening after Hannah Richard’s disappearance and the family had not yet received a ransom call from the kidnapper. Annie was at her wit’s end and beginning to lose hope. On the third day of the Hannah ordeal, she received a call from Steven Stein, informing her his mother had to be rushed to the hospital with chest pain. It turned out Robin wasn’t having a heart attack, but was held overnight for observation. Annie’s spirits and physical state weren’t in much better shape. She had been feeling depressed and totally depleted of her normal high-energy. The chances Hannah was still alive were going from smaller to slim.
Being smacked in the face with what life can throw at you, Annie finally came to the realization her breakup with Michael was long overdue. Her decision was final. She would stop wasting her time and more importantly, Michael’s, on a relationship that was going nowhere. She needed to end it with him for good. As she drove home from work that day, she dialed his cell phone number. He answered in his typical jovial manner.
“Hello beautiful. How are you today?”
“I’ve had better days, Michael. Hannah is still missing and we have no clue whether she’s dead or alive. I can’t believe I’m saying it out loud, but if you asked me, I don’t think it’s the latter. Anyway, I was wondering what you were doing tonight. Are you gonna be home?”
“Actually, I have no plans at all. So you’re in luck. Would you like to go out to dinner? Maybe catch a movie. Get your mind off things.”
Michael wasn’t going to make it any easier on her. She said, “No, I’d like to just come by your house, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I’d be glad to have you. Would you like me to fix something for dinner?”
“No thanks. I had a late lunch and I’m not that hungry. I just want to talk.”
“Sure thing. What time is good for you?”
“How 'bout seven? Will you be home from work by then?”
“I’ll make sure of it.”
“Alrighty, I’ll see you then.”
An hour and a half later, Annie pulled into Michael’s driveway at his waterfront home off of Las Olas Blvd. He had just arrived and was at the curb checking his mailbox. They walked into the house together while Michael rummaged through his assortment of letters, bills and advertisements. They passed through the front double doors onto the polished Brazilian cherry wood floors of the foyer. Curious about a manila envelope that had no return address, Michael held it up to the light coming in through the window above the doors to examine it. A bulge in the package led him to believe there was a product or gift inside. He tore it open and found what he thought to be some kind of practical joke. With a puzzled look on his face, he removed the two rubber ears from inside the envelope. Surprised to find there was no letter to explain the bizarre package, he inspected the ears more closely. The rubber had been scraped off of one of them. What he saw underneath caused him to inhale a quick gasp of air and a bit of saliva. It appeared to be human skin with a star-shaped mole on the earlobe. Annie, who was watching him open the envelope, noticed a look of disgust in his grimace before he started coughing. She asked, “Michael, what the heck is that? What’s wrong?”
After a few seconds the cough settled. “I have absolutely no idea,” he responded. “At first, I thought it was some type of gag gift. But, take a look at this. It actually looks like human skin.”
Ann
ie inspected the ears. When she saw the mole, her face contorted into an expression of pure horror and she passed out in a heap on the floor. Astonished by her reaction, Michael dropped the envelope and rushed to her aid. He picked her up off the floor, carried her to the living room and gently laid her down on the sofa. He considered calling 911 then thought it might be an overreaction. He hurried into the kitchen to run a dish rag under cold water, returned to the living room and placed it on Annie’s forehead.
Within several minutes, she began to stir. When she completely regained her senses, she cried out, “Michael, that was Hannah’s ear. I recognize the star-shaped mole on the earlobe.” Tears streamed down her face leaving trace lines of black mascara.
“What? Are you sure about that? Why would anyone send such a thing to me?”
“I have no idea but I’m positive. That’s not a mole you see every day and it’s in the exact right location. I’m not wrong about this.”
“Are you ok? You took a pretty good spill. I was worried you might have broken something.”
“Physically, I feel fine.” She stood up to test her bearings. Michael tried to get her to stay on the sofa but she was determined.
He said, “We need to call the police then. Let me get the phone.”
Annie followed him to the kitchen suggesting, “I think we should call Daniel. The FBI is already investigating the case.”
Michael handed Annie the phone and she dialed Daniel’s cell phone number. She hadn’t spoken to him since the night they made love and was feeling somewhat awkward calling him. Considering the circumstances now was no time to worry about her own well-being.
“Hello, Annie.”
“Yes, Daniel, I’m sorry to call, but something terrible’s happened. I’m over at Michael Munez’s house. He received a package in the mail today... Oh my God, Daniel, Hannah’s ear was in the envelope. It was coated with rubber except for a section on the earlobe that was scraped clean to expose her mole. It’s very unique... unmistakable. It’s star-shaped. There was a second ear in the envelope that I assume was Hannah’s too. This is horrible. I can’t believe it.”
“Are you sure it was a human ear?”
“I can’t be absolutely sure. It definitely looks like it to me. To Michael too.”
“I’m gonna send a forensics team down there right away. Where’s the package now? Be sure neither of you touch it again. Can you give me the address?”
She turned to Michael and asked him where the envelope was. Because of his panicked response to Annie’s loss of consciousness, he couldn’t recall what happened to the ears or the envelope. She relayed the information to Daniel and gave him Michael’s address.
“Please leave the evidence exactly where it landed. I’m sure it’s already been tainted with your fingerprints, but I want to minimize the contamination.”
“We won’t touch a thing...Daniel...I’m sure she’s dead. This is just too sad...Oh my God. What kind of demented monster would do such a thing?”
“You can’t jump to any conclusions yet. The abductor could be playing games with us. You never know. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit. I’ll send a team out right away. We shouldn’t assume anything until we’re able to do some tests. Before I hang up, do you have any idea why this package would have been sent to Michael?”
“It’s a total mystery to me. It makes no sense whatsoever.”
“For now, I know it’s not gonna be easy...try to get yourself together. Maybe you shouldn’t be alone. Why don’t you spend the night at Michael’s?”
“I think I’ll just stick around till the forensics team is done. Then, I’m gonna go to my Mom’s.”
“So long as you’re not alone. I’ll give you a call tomorrow with an update.”
“You’re not coming?”
“No, I’ve assigned the case to Leland. He’ll be there.”
It was a crisp, brisk Wednesday morning in the Catskill Mountains just north of Tannersville, New York. There wasn’t a cloud in the pristine, blue sky. The unfettered, bright sun shone down on the leaves of the sugar maple trees causing icicles to form that resembled the sharp tiny teeth of a moray eel. Frank Jensen and three of his buddies were up at the crack of dawn that morning for a day of deer hunting though there would be no fresh venison served at the dinner table that night. As Frank skulked stealthily down a backcountry trail in his bright orange hunting gear, he spied a charred shape low to the ground approximately twenty yards ahead. The tree just behind the object had burned also. The closer he approached, the more it became clear the object was the body of a human being. About twenty five feet from the horrific scene, he stopped in his tracks. Despite the frosty chill in the air, the stench emitted from the corpse caused a burning acid-like bile to rise into his throat. He vomited his pancake breakfast into the fresh, white snow.
After collecting himself, he moved downwind from the body and called to his friends who were lagging behind. Larry Costa was the only member of the party who had a cell phone with service. Frank warned the guys not to get too close to the scene. When Larry saw the scorched cadaver, he pulled his cell phone out of his backpack and called 911.
Sheriff John Freeman of the Green County Sheriff’s Department responded to the scene of Hannah Richards’ murder along with Deputy Sheriff Blaine Carter. Sheriff Freeman had been involved in police work for more than forty-five years, including working the homicide division of the New York State Police Department in Brooklyn. Never, in his entire career had he witnessed the remains of such a horrendous killing. With the collar of their sweaters covering their nose and mouth, they approached the body. Their efforts to protect their senses from the fetid stench were weak at best. While Freeman visually examined the body, Carter stepped off the path to expel his breakfast. Freeman followed suit seconds later.
Most of the victim’s clothing had been burned off the body. There were some strings and rags remaining hanging from the legs and wrists. The epidermis was completely charred black from head to toe. Cracks in the skin on her face, torso, and legs revealed cooked flesh beneath. In some cases, the crevices were so deep they exposed the red, frozen, raw tissue that was spared the intense heat of the fire. Desiccated, frozen, over-boiled blood trailed down from the empty eye sockets like vampire blood tears. It also flowed, bubbled and dried into hundreds of odd shaped scabs that filled many of the other open fissures that covered the corpse. While inspecting the body, Freeman noticed what appeared to be some form of identification or driver’s license nailed to a tree trunk ten feet behind the burned sugar maple. On closer examination, he saw it was in fact a Florida Driver’s License belonging to Hannah Richards.
After calling the name into dispatch, he regrettably learned that the FBI had put out an All Points Bulletin for the alleged victim. The Feds were far from his favorite people, but since they were already involved in the Richards case, he was obligated to notify them of the discovery. He wasn’t pleased to have to bow to the Bureau. In his opinion they were just a bunch of cocky, overconfident, snooty sons of bitches. On the other hand, he knew this type of crime didn’t happen often in Green County and they were ill-equipped to evaluate a crime scene of this magnitude. It pissed him off when he called the New York field office minutes later and the agent working the case had the impudence to instruct him how to secure the area. He wasn’t in law enforcement for almost half a century to have some young, punk, federal agent tell him how to manage a crime scene. He’d have Carter put up some yellow tape, though he wasn’t going out of his way.
Once the area was cordoned off, Sheriff Freeman asked the four young hunters to follow him to the station where he planned to take their statements. It was his jurisdiction after all and hell if he didn’t have every right to open up an investigation. There was also the slight possibility this wasn’t the Richards woman. The license could have been used as a distraction by the murderer. He left his deputy at the scene and ordered him to call as soon as James Mancini and his team arrived.
The equipment in t
he computer room of Shem’s apartment could have overseen a NASA moon voyage. In fact, his self-made computer was more complex than what NASA employed for their Apollo space missions in the late sixties and seventies. That day, he was performing a simple operation. He had downloaded pictures from his camcorder onto his hard drive and was printing them onto 13x8 Epson premium glossy photo paper.
After the Saturday night episode, his first instinct was to plan the murder of the FBI agent to make him suffer more than any person ever suffered in the history of humanity. Once he got to really thinking, he devised an ingenious plot that would make Falcone’s torment last for the remainder of his life. The agent would rue the day he crossed Shem Chassar. This plan was going to be his piece de resistance, truly one for the books.
Before beginning the printing process, Shem placed a pair of rubber gloves on his hands. He removed five sheets of the glossy photo paper from its package and put them in the printer. Initiating the printing process with the click of his mouse, the images were etched onto the paper. After placing them carefully into a manila envelope, he addressed it to Deborah Falcone, setting the printer to type “for the addressee’s eyes only.” It was a joyous occasion the day Munez received his special package and Shem had the opportunity to be present. He watched the spectacle from afar, including the arrival of more than seven law enforcement vehicles. The asshole Munez should know now what he was up against if he had half a brain. Shem considered putting a note with the ears warning him to stay away from Annie or he’d be next. That was too obvious a clue for the investigators. If Munez didn’t get the message that this was what happened to people who got too close to what belonged to Shem, there would be no doubt next time. Hopefully, this new special delivery would bring about even better results.