by J. R. McLeay
Joe glanced at Hannah. She shrugged her shoulders. The Pierre was one of New York City's premiere luxury hotels and hosted many powerful guests. The last thing the detectives needed was a raft of new complaints to the commissioner concerning inappropriate police conduct.
“I suppose so,” Joe allowed. “But only to announce our purpose at the door. If the killer is still here, it will be too dangerous for your staff to enter the room until we've cleared it.”
“I understand,” the manager said.
“I'll interview the guests here in the lobby. Once everybody is cleared, they'll receive vouchers to return to their rooms. But under no circumstances is anyone to leave the building until I've given the okay to end the lockdown. If you find anything suspicious on your video feeds, please notify me immediately.”
“Of course.”
The manager walked away with a hotel security officer. Tony returned from securing the exit doors and joined the rest of the Midtown Precinct detectives at the front desk. Although Joe didn't have direct line authority over the other detectives, they informally deferred to his seniority. He was widely respected by his colleagues and had a long track record solving high profile cases.
“Han,” Joe instructed. “Take Tony, Frank, and Miguel to check the rooms. Two detectives to a room. I doubt the shooter would be dumb enough to linger, but keep your safeties off and proceed with caution. If you find anyone still in the room, match their identification and hotel registration. Look for an open window with a south or west exposure or any furniture out of position near the window. If you find anything suspicious, give me a call. I'll work with the rest of our crew down here and do likewise. Let's not let this guy slip through our fingers.”
“Will do, Joe,” Hannah said. “I’ll check back soon.”
Half a block away, a man in a gray suit pulling a carry-on bag entered Barney's department store on Madison Avenue. He walked calmly through the main floor fragrance department to the bank of elevators near the rear of the store. When the door slid open, he crowded into the compartment with other smartly dressed shoppers carrying large bags. He didn’t look out of place.
At the ninth floor, he exited the elevator and approached the hostess at Fred's Restaurant.
“May I help you, sir?” the hostess said.
“Table for one, facing 61st Street.”
“Of course. Please follow me.”
The man followed the hostess to a table by a window, where he paused briefly to peer in the direction of the Pierre Hotel. Seeing the swarm of flashing police cruisers still parked outside the hotel, he took his seat.
“A server will be with you shortly,” the hostess said before heading back to her station.
Picking up the menu from the linen-covered table, the man scanned the lunch selections. He hadn't realized how much of an appetite he'd worked up over the last hour. When the waiter arrived at his table, the man ordered beef tenderloin and a glass of Bordeaux.
When his lunch arrived, he devoured the steak between gulps of blood-red wine. Overhearing the idle conversations of rich Manhattan housewives and power brokers from nearby tables, he smiled as he watched the bustle of activity surrounding the Pierre Hotel.
10
NYPD 18th Precinct
July 7, 8:00 a.m.
Joe and Hannah approached Lieutenant O'Neill's office for their scheduled early-morning appointment. They were expecting a highly charged meeting. Three sniper murders in as many days was bad enough, but the brazen assassination of a cop in broad daylight had raised the stakes to a new level.
Normally, the anteroom outside the lieutenant's office was a busy hive of activity with detectives chatting and making calls. Today it was ghostly silent, as all eyes followed the two detectives heading up the investigation. The worst part was that the sniper had slipped away again, leaving precious few clues. The detectives were no closer to identifying or capturing him.
The lieutenant's office door was closed, but Joe could see an unidentified woman sitting opposite his desk through the partially open blinds. Joe tapped twice on the door as he appraised the woman through the glass. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, wearing a smart navy suit with short brown hair pulled back in a bun.
Definitely not one of ours, he thought. Too prim and buttoned up—looks like a fed.
“Come in,” O'Neill said.
Joe and Hannah entered, and Lieutenant O'Neill stood to introduce his guest.
“This is Special Agent Kate Palmer with the FBI. She has extensive experience profiling serial killers. I've brought her in to see if she can help track our sniper.”
O'Neill looked at the special agent and motioned towards Joe and Hannah.
“Ms. Palmer, these are the two lead detectives assigned to our case, Joe Bannon and Hannah Trimble.”
“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Palmer,” Joe said, extending his hand.
“Please, call me Kate,” the special agent said, shaking each detective's hand. “There’s already enough tension surrounding this situation. No need to add any unnecessary formality.”
“Likewise,” Joe said, smiling at the special agent as he and Hannah took seats beside her.
“Right,” O'Neill interjected. “Can you two update Kate with the latest information from yesterday's shooting? I understand you've gathered some new evidence from the hotel sweep?”
“Yes,” Joe reported. “Most importantly, we have video footage of the suspect. It's a bit grainy, but we've identified he’s a man in his mid-to-late twenties.”
“No fingerprints?” O'Neill asked.
“The video captures the room he fired from, but our forensics team wasn't able to swab any prints beyond those traced to the previous guests.”
“What about facial recognition from the video? Did you run it through the database?”
“The perp was pretty heavily camouflaged behind dark glasses, a beard, and a hat, so the system wasn't able to correlate the data.”
“How did he escape the cordon? Didn't you lock down the hotel within minutes of the shooting?”
“Yes, but it appears he slipped out before all the exit doors could be secured.”
O'Neill slumped back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“And you have no idea as to where he went or his current whereabouts?”
“No,” Joe said. “But the hotel video provides some information about his MO. We know how he gets into the hotel, how he sets up, and how he exits. We should be able to alert other hotels to watch for similar movement in the future.”
“That can work both ways,” O'Neill said, cocking an eyebrow. “We might be able to prevent a recurrence, but maybe we're better off trapping him in the act rather than discouraging him from giving us another shot at him. Do you have the video footage with you? Why don't we give Kate a look to see if she can lend her insight?”
Joe reached into his pocket and pulled out a thumb drive.
“I've got the relevant files copied here.”
He handed the thumb drive over the desk, and O'Neill inserted it into the side of his laptop. He tapped his keyboard a few times then turned the laptop around ninety degrees. Kate and the two detectives pulled their chairs together to get a closer look at the screen. The video revealed a tall man in a driver's cap, pulling a roller suitcase toward the elevator.
“Is that the suspect?” Kate asked.
“Yes,” Joe said.
“He seems to be aware of the location of the ceiling cam,” O'Neill observed. “His head is tilted down just enough to obscure his eyes. Kate, what do you make of his countenance?”
“He walks briskly and with confidence, suggesting he's done this before or at least has rehearsed his steps. He's well dressed with a neatly trimmed beard. He obviously has resources. Nobody seems to be paying him any mind at this point.”
“What about his luggage? It looks a bit different than the standard carry-on. Notice the irregular handle?”
“Yes. It's a bit longer than normal and perfectly round.
Possibly holds the rifle barrel? He's probably got the rest of the components packed in the small case. Looks like a custom job.”
All four cops watched intently as the man pressed the exterior elevator button then stepped inside.
“See that?” O'Neill said, glancing up at Kate. “He pressed the elevator button with his knuckle. No prints.”
Kate nodded as she continued watching the man. “Now he's putting on gloves. No wonder you couldn't find any prints. This guy's no amateur.”
The elevator cam showed the man pressing the button for the eighteenth floor, then only the top of his cap as he stood perfectly still waiting for the door to open. Kate and O'Neill shifted closer to the screen as they watched the man exit the elevator and move down the hall.
O'Neill looked up at Joe.
“We haven't got a frontal view for this shot?”
“The hotel only has hallway cams at the corners, facing the exits. You'll get a better view in a few minutes.”
The man continued down the hall toward a housekeeping cart placed in front of an open guest room door. The lieutenant's eyes widened as he watched the man quickly step behind the cart and peer into the open bathroom. He seemed to place something into the door jamb before stepping back behind the cart into the hallway. The whole sequence only took three or four seconds.
“What the hell?” O’Neill exclaimed. “Is that the normal level of security at New York's fanciest hotels? Do chambermaids routinely leave guest room doors open and unattended while they work inside? Just about anybody could slip inside that way!”
“It is, unfortunately,” Hannah said. “At least on check-out days. The chambermaids are informed when guests check out so they know when to do a thorough refresh. I guess they figure there's nothing of value in the room at this point, so they don't see the need to lock the door.”
O'Neill paused the video and backed it up a few seconds.
“What was that object he took out of his pocket and inserted into the door? Can we zoom in to see what he's doing?”
“These are just basic dome cams,” Joe said. “They can only sweep in circles, with no zoom capability. It looks to be some kind of jamming device, because when he returns after the chambermaid leaves, he opens the door without a key.”
“Clever,” O'Neill said. He watched the man walk to the end of the hall and disappear behind a stairwell door.
“No cams in the stairways?”
“No, but he reappears in about five minutes.”
O'Neill pressed the fast-forward button on his keyboard until the stairwell door reopened and the man walked back down the hallway.
The lieutenant followed the man's gait as he moved toward the camera.
“That's a long shot, but at least we can see his face. What do you figure? About six feet, one-seventy?”
Joe nodded.
“Yes, he's pretty slim but looks to be in good shape. He moves like an athlete.”
The man in the video stopped and paused briefly outside the closed door to room 1817 then turned his head as if listening for any sign of interior activity. Then he pushed the door open, pulled the clear object from the door jamb, and closed the door behind him.
“At least we know how he gets into the guest rooms unnoticed,” O'Neill said. “We'll have to notify all the hotel managers in the city to secure their guest rooms during future service. How long does the perp stay in the room?”
“About twenty minutes,” Joe said. “He seems to be on a schedule and doesn't waste any time. He goes in to the room at 11:48 and comes out at 12:09.”
O'Neill shook his head.
“Too bad this feed doesn't come with audio. Can you narrow down the exact time of the shooting?”
“Yes—once again, almost precisely at noon.”
“So he's able to set up and disassemble his equipment quickly.”
“It appears so. He definitely knows what he's doing.”
O'Neill advanced the video to the 12:09 time mark. The door to the room reopened and the man calmly walked to the far end of the hall where he pressed the staff elevator button and disappeared inside.
“No cams inside that elevator?”
“Not inside the staff elevators.”
“This guy's done his homework,” O'Neill said. “When did you arrive at the site of the shooting and notify the hotel to lock down?”
“We got to the corner of 59th and 5th Avenue at 12:06 and identified the Pierre as the likely location of the shooter a few minutes after. We called the hotel around 12:15 and arrived there less than a minute later.”
“So the perp had five or six minutes to escape before all the doors were locked down?”
“Yes. You'll see in the next clip where he gets off the staff elevator and exits to the courtyard behind the hotel.”
O'Neill resumed the video, and the group watched as the man emerged from the elevator and exited through a side door. The next scene showed him walking briskly away toward the East Side, his roller case trailing behind. The last time indicated on the video feed was 12:12.
“That's the last we see of him?” O’Neill asked. “And you and Hannah arrived at the hotel four minutes later?”
“Yes.”
“That's one cool operator.”
O'Neill turned to Kate, who'd been quiet during most of the playing of the video.
“Kate, what do you make of all this? Can you put anything together based on the clip and the MO from the previous shootings?”
Kate finished scribbling some notes on a notepad and looked up.
“From the video, we see a calm and confident young man who obviously has practiced his craft, if we can call it that. But I think there's a lot more going on under the surface that we're not seeing. Anyone with this level of broad animosity, who can kill perfect strangers in cold blood, obviously has a lot of issues. I've seen this time and again. Serial killers always have an agenda.”
“What about his victims?” O'Neill said. “So different in each case. How can we discern a motive from that?”
“Yes, that's a bit irregular. Serial killers usually establish a pattern of preferential targets such as young women, co-workers, or the like. In this case, we have to infer motivation. I don't think these targets were randomly selected. I think this is an angry young man who has an axe to grind and some kind of score to settle.”
O'Neill spread his hands in supplication.
“Why in God's name would he start with a young pregnant woman?”
“It could be a revealing sign that he started with her. Maybe he fathered a child out of wedlock and his girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes. Or maybe he was abused by his mother and the pregnant woman was a manifestation of this. Maybe he was adopted, and this was his way of taking his anger out on a mother who rejected him.”
“That's a lot of maybes.”
“Yes,” Kate said. “But we now have three data points upon which to connect some of the dots. The commonalities narrow the field of possibilities and begin to focus our magnifying glass.”
“What do you make of his second hit? What commonalities can you establish between such widely different targets?”
“The second one was a wealthy businessman who would appear to come from power and privilege. I'm guessing this young man, whatever his current means, came from a poor upbringing. He may have been abused by his father or some other male authority figure. Maybe someone who worked in the financial district.”
“And the cop? What possible connection can there be there?”
O'Neill practically spat out the words, seething at the idea of a cold-blooded killer having the nerve to target a uniformed police officer.
Kate shook her head.
“The shooter may have had trouble with the law growing up. Or this could be another manifestation of his anger for any authority figure. This might be his perverted way of reasserting his power after being in a situation where he had no control and authority figures took advantage of him.”
“What
about the weapon?” Joe interjected. “It's a military-grade, state-of-the-art sniper rifle. Should we be looking for someone with a military background?”
“Not necessarily. He could have secured the weapon on the black market. He might just as easily have a hunting background, with practice shooting game from long distances. The military rifle might just be his way of stepping up to the latest technology.”
“How about his beard and his clothes?” Hannah asked. “Can we make any conclusions based on his appearance?”
Kate nodded.
“The beard, the sunglasses, and the cap are all likely designed to mask his identity. He knew he'd be recorded going about public spaces in this expensive hotel. I think that was all calculated and not part of his normal persona.”
The FBI agent turned back to Lieutenant O'Neill.
“May I have a copy of the video? Our FBI technicians might be able to clarify some of the footage. A close-up of his face could reveal more clues as to his history and identity.”
The lieutenant nodded.
“My suspicion,” Kate continued, “is that the suit, the cap, and the cropped beard were all designed to create a persona to fit the setting. I doubt that we're dealing with a well-to-do young man with a flight of fancy, or some kind of God complex. I think this is a clever but disturbed fellow who's angry at the world for multiple perceived abuses. He's likely been planning his revenge for quite some time.”
“What can we make of the time of day for each shooting?” Hannah asked. “All right around noon. Is this some kind of High Noon gunslinger thing?”
Kate's eyes narrowed as she pondered the question.
“That's an interesting one. I understand you have eyewitness accounts of each shooting? The good thing about modern technology is that just about everybody nowadays carries around mobile devices that record a temporal footprint of their actions and whereabouts. Were you able to capture any of that real-time data?”
“Yes,” Joe said. “In two of the three shootings, we interviewed witnesses who were on their phone at the moment of firing. In both cases the call was terminated immediately, marking the time of the shooting at one minute after noon. The guys from the First Precinct weren't able to narrow down the downtown shooting beyond a few minutes on either side of noon.”