by Blake Banner
He typed in his password and handed it to me. “I’ll check the history. Don’t do anything you might regret.”
I held his eye and tried to suppress the rage that was building inside me. “Right now, Special Agent Turner, you need to be worrying about whether I am going to do something you may regret. Stop waving your fucking dick around and get on the case.”
I took the computer into the church and started searching the land registry. It didn’t take long before I found what I was looking for. Peter Smith had a second house, on Jackson Avenue, in the Bronx. I knew the street. I knew the house. It was rough. Not what you would expect from Peter.
I went to call the captain, but he was coming for me. I said, “There is a chance she is at this address. We need to get there fast, and we need a warrant to search the property.”
“What property?”
“It’s a house on Jackson Avenue. It belongs to Peter Smith, the guy who owns the lockup. To be honest, I have never liked him as our guy, but…” I shook my head. “Unless I’m missing something really obvious, it’s either David or Peter, and now we know it’s not David. We are out of options.”
He held up his cell. “That number you asked me to trace? It was Peter’s cell.”
“What?”
“Let’s go. I’ll call Judge Sanders for search warrants on that place and his house.”
I drove fast. We were both silent. I was thinking hard as we roared down the darkened highway. In my mind, I could see almost the whole thing now. It all made perfect sense, and I was raging at myself for not having seen it before Dehan got taken. It had been obvious from the start. But that was how this guy operated. His genius, if that was what it was, was to invert things, turn them into negatives of themselves, show them back to front.
The only time the captain spoke was as we streaked between two sixteen-wheelers. “I do appreciate the urgency, John. But it would be useful to arrive there alive.”
I glanced at him and nodded, but I didn’t slow down. It was a journey that should have taken forty-five minutes. It took us barely half an hour.
There was a patrol car waiting at the house. Officer Sanchez and his partner climbed out as we pulled up. He handed the search warrants to the captain. I ran up the stairs, hammered on the door, and leaned on the bell. There was no reply. I took out my piece and shot out the lock.
I heard Sanchez say, “Woah!” I didn’t give a damn. I ran in. Captain Newman, Sanchez, and his partner were right behind me. There was a short passage that led to a kitchen at the back. A door on the left opened into a living room, and on the right, stairs led to an upper floor.
I pushed into the living room while the captain went to the kitchen and the patrolmen went upstairs. The living room was shabby and seedy. There was a sofa, and two armchairs in brown vinyl. A TV was positioned opposite the sofa, and stacked next to it on the floor was a collection of pornographic DVDs. There was a cheap dining table and four chairs, and beyond them a set of french doors looked onto an overgrown back garden. Whoever used this place didn’t use it for gardening.
The captain came in from the kitchen. “Nothing.”
Sanchez called down from upstairs. “Clear, Detective!”
I went up and had a look around. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom. In the bathroom, there were patches of mold on the walls. The mirror was speckled, and the floorboards creaked underfoot.
In the master bedroom, there was a large king-size bed. It looked like IKEA, new. The sheets were fresh and clean. There was a cheap carpet on the floor, but that was also new, as were the drapes on the window. The walls seemed to be recently painted. I looked in the wardrobe. The only clothes were women’s BDSM role-playing costumes.
In the second bedroom, the paper was peeling off the walls. There was a single aluminum-framed bed. The sheets were old, stained, and frayed. It was hard to imagine Peter in a place like this. And once again, I had the feeling that the picture was wrong. I had it all—almost. But something was missing.
I ran down the stairs and went out to the back garden. The captain followed. Sanchez flipped a switch in the kitchen and an outside light came on. Around the side of the house, I found a flight of stairs that led down to a door. I glanced at the captain. My heart was pounding.
“It’s a cellar.”
I pulled out my piece to shoot out the lock again, but Sanchez said, “Detective?”
I looked up. He was holding some keys. “They were by the light switch, in the kitchen.”
I nodded. I unlocked the door and went in, shouting, “Dehan! Dehan!” There was only an empty echo.
I hit the switch by the door. There was a boiler against one wall, pipes running across the ceiling, boxes, a washing machine and dryer. I went to every wall and knocked on each one to see if they were hollow. They were all solid. I examined the pipes for scrape marks made by cuffs. There was nothing there. She was not here. She had never been here. I felt the cold, white fingers of despair clenching inside. The captain, Sanchez, and his partner were staring at me.
“She’s not here, Stone.”
I checked Dehan’s phone. We had half an hour.
The captain spoke again. His voice sounded too loud in the empty cellar. “She’s not here. So she’s got to be at his house. And if she’s not there, we’ll make him tell us where she is.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t shake that feeling—the feeling that I was missing the main point, like when I kept looking at the photograph.
“We are missing something.”
He wasn’t listening. He made for the door. “Let’s go and pull this son of a bitch in.”
I followed him back up the stairs. We climbed into the Jag, and the patrol car led the way through the darkness and the rain, with its siren howling and its lights pulsing. We came fast down Bruckner Boulevard and turned in to Revere with the tires skidding and screeching on the wet road. We had ten minutes.
His vehicle was parked out front, and there was light in his windows. I jumped out of the car and ran. I hammered on the door and heard voices inside. Peter pulled the door open. He looked scandalized.
The captain was showing him the warrant as I pushed past him and ran up the stairs. I could hear Newman asking him, “Where were you this afternoon at three p.m.?”
I went into the master bedroom. I could hear Sanchez and his partner coming up behind me. I went onto the landing, pointing back into the bedroom. “Every drawer, under the bed, every inch for any trace of her.”
I checked the other bedrooms and shouted, “When you’re done in there, check the other rooms. Every damned inch!”
I ran down the stairs. The captain was still talking to Peter. Peter was saying, “I have been here all afternoon. My wife will attest to that!”
I butted in. “Is there a cellar?”
He still looked scandalized. “What?”
“Is there a cellar?” My voice rang out loud and ugly. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “Is there a goddamn cellar?”
He looked terrified. Jennifer had her hands over her mouth. He said, “Yes,” and led me to the kitchen. The cellar door was not locked. I switched on the light and ran down. Peter and the captain followed. As with the other house, it was one large room. There was a boiler against one wall. There was a washing machine and a dryer. There were boxes stacked here and there. I went to each wall, tapping, listening for a hollow echo. I felt sick. My heart was racing. I checked my phone. I had two minutes.
Suddenly, something snapped, and I lunged at him and grabbed him by the throat with my left hand. I had my automatic in my right, and I thrust it in his face and screamed at him, “Where is she? Tell me where you have her or I swear I’ll blow your fucking brains all over the walls!”
The captain was shouting at me, “John! John! Get a grip!”
Peter had his eyes closed and was repeating, “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!”
Then there was a noise. It was loud and jarring, and we all stopped and stared at each other. My skin
went cold and pasty, and I felt my hair prickle. It was an electronic beeping, like an alarm clock on a cell phone.
I heard myself say, “No…”
I pulled Dehan’s phone from my pocket. The time was up.
And in that instant it hit me.
I ran.
I ran scrambling up the stairs. I could hear the captain shouting after me. I ignored him and bolted through the house. Jennifer was there, still with her hands over her mouth. I leapt down the steps and sprinted along the wet pavement toward Barkley Avenue, with the rain drenching my hair and my face. It must have taken me twenty seconds, no more, but each stride was an eternity. I skidded and fell on the corner. Scrambled to my feet and ran for the alley.
Another agonizing twenty seconds. My lungs were screaming. My heart was pounding so hard I felt my head was going to explode. I was screaming her name through the rain. I stared at the lockups. Which one?
“Which one?”
I blew the lock off Peter’s and hauled up the roller blind. It was empty. I ran across to the GCS units. I blew off the lock on the first and dragged up the blind. There were only computers. I went to the next, took aim, and that was when I smelled it. I froze. Then I put on the safety and hammered the padlock with the butt of my gun. It sprang and I dragged the door open.
There was a canister of butane gas. There was a valve with a timer attached. It was hissing loudly. Dehan was lying on the floor. Her wrists and ankles were tightly bound with duct tape. She had tape across her mouth. Her eyes were closed, and her skin was cold and pale like marble.
I bit back the tears and whispered, “No… Oh no…”
I turned off the gas and picked her up in my arms. I carried her out into the rain and laid her on the ground. I pulled the tape from her mouth and felt for a pulse in her neck. There was nothing. She was dead. I pumped her chest, pinched her nose, and blew hard into her mouth. Pumped again on her chest. Blew hard into her mouth. Pumped.
I pulled my penknife from my pocket and cut the tape from her wrists, spreading her arms out to open up her lungs. I shouted at her, “Come on, goddamn it, Dehan! Don’t do this to me!”
I pounded hard on her chest again, pumped up and down, put my mouth over hers, and blew hard and steady.
She made a horrible noise, like a car that won’t start. Her eyes snapped open, and she gasped in great gulps of air. Then she rolled on her side and vomited, copiously. I stood and looked away, clenching my teeth and blessing the rain for hiding my tears, mixed with laughter and sobs of relief.
A figure was moving up the alley at a run. It was the captain. I shouted to him in a strangled voice. “She’s alive. But we need an ambulance!”
He stopped running and pulled his cell from his pocket, striding toward us as he dialed. I turned back to Dehan and knelt by her side. She looked yellow in the limpid light. She tried a smile but didn’t quite make it.
“I knew you’d come.”
I picked her up in my arms and carried her back toward Barkley Avenue. I said softly, “Who was it, Dehan? Who did this to you?”
She looked up into my face and touched my cheek with her fingers. “I don’t remember anything, Stone. Except I knew you’d come.”
Twenty-One
I had my ass on my desk, and the captain was sitting in Dehan’s chair. It was nine p.m. and I had just got back from the hospital.
“How is she?”
“She’s very sick, but the doctor said she’ll make a full recovery in a day or two. She hadn’t inhaled enough gas to cause permanent damage. But if I had been a minute longer…” I shook my head. “Hell! If I had shot the lock, neither of us would be here right now.”
He smiled. “How many locks did you blow away today, John?”
“I guess I lost it.”
“You two are a good team. You care about each other.”
I shrugged. “What about Sanchez and his partner? Did they find anything?”
“Davis. Yup. In their bedroom, Sanchez found an envelope containing a silver David’s star on a chain. On the back, it was engraved ‘To Carmen Dehan, from Mom and Daddy, on her first birthday, May 9, 1991.’”
He tossed it on the desk. It was in a plastic evidence bag. I picked it up and looked at it. It was the one I had helped her put on in Oacoma.
“Anything else?”
“The duct tape you sent in? The piece that had her phone stuck to the guy’s van?” I nodded. “It’s the same as the stuff that was used to bind her ankles and wrists, and it has a clear thumbprint on it. Peter’s.”
I stared at him for a bit. “Just one?”
“That’s all they could get at the lab.” He studied my face a moment and decided to ignore my expression. “I’ve arrested him. He’s in the cell downstairs talking to his lawyer. Whenever you want to interrogate him…”
I gave a couple of slow nods. “Yeah, I’ll talk to him now.”
We walked together to the interrogation room. As I was going in, the captain put a hand on my arm.
“I’ll be in the observation room, John. You got your shit together?”
“Yeah.”
“No more threats of violence. No more violence, or we lose the case.”
“I know. I’m okay.”
A couple of uniforms brought Peter in about five minutes later. He was cuffed and he sat opposite me. He looked very pale and very scared. His lawyer came in after him. He didn’t look happy either. He sat next to Peter and said, “My client is going to present a complaint against the city for police brutality. Are you Detective Stone?”
“Yeah.”
“The complaint will cite you specifically, Detective Stone.”
“Fine. We are not here to discuss your civil suits, Mr. Smith. We are here to discuss your attempted murder of Detective Dehan.”
“That is a lie and an outrage! I have never laid a hand on Detective Dehan, or anybody else!”
I held up a hand. “Let’s take it one step at a time, shall we, Mr. Smith? I know you are a methodical man, and you like to do things methodically… isn’t that right, Peter?”
His lawyer put his hand on Peter’s arm. “You don’t need to answer that, Peter. Can we stick to the point, please, Detective Stone? My client has not been arrested for being methodical.”
Like most lawyers, this one was going to be a pain in the ass.
“Have you any reason for not wanting to acknowledge that you are methodical and systematic?”
Before his lawyer could intervene, his vanity got the better of him. “I am a methodical and systematic man. What of it?”
“So you’ll have no trouble telling me where you were yesterday afternoon at a quarter to three.”
“I already told your captain, I was at home, working.”
“Have you got anybody who can verify that?”
“Of course. My wife was with me the whole time.”
“Yeah, see, I was afraid you were going to say that. Because I, personally, wouldn’t believe a word your wife says in your defense, and neither will the jury, because she is so obviously terrified of you.”
“What? That’s ridiculous…”
“Is it? Why do you say that?”
“Why would my wife be terrified of me…?”
“I don’t know, Peter. Why would she be terrified of you?”
His lawyer spoke up. “Detective Stone, you are deliberately confusing my client, presenting his own question to him as though it were an admission.”
“Do you inflict physical violence on your wife, Peter? Or only psychological violence?”
“Don’t answer that.”
He swallowed.
I went on. “I am just trying to establish why she is so scared of you.”
“She isn’t!”
“Okay, so you claim that you were at home at two forty-five.”
“I don’t claim. I was at home.”
“So when you telephoned Detective Dehan, you called her from home?”
“What?”
“Peter
, the question is a very clear, simple one. Did you telephone Detective Dehan from home at two forty-five yesterday afternoon?”
He was shaking his head and looking at me as though I was crazy. “I didn’t call her from anywhere. I haven’t telephoned Detective Dehan in my life. I don’t even know her number.”
I frowned at the file I had open in front of me. “But this is your number, isn’t it?”
I slid the print out across the table and pointed to where it showed the last call to Dehan’s cell. He stared at it a moment and then stared at me.
“But that’s my cell number.”
“Yes, Peter, that is your cell number. So when you made that call, at two forty-five, where were you?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“You don’t get it. I did not make that call. I could not have made that call. I haven’t got my cell phone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I lost my phone.”
I laughed. “When was that?”
“A couple of days ago.”
“How convenient.”
“I am telling you! I lost my phone!”
“Well, then, Peter, perhaps you can explain something else to me.”
“Dear God!”
“Have you ever seen this phone before?” I showed him Dehan’s phone in a plastic evidence bag.
“Not that I am aware of, no.”
“How about this duct tape?”
He shrugged. “It’s duct tape.”
“Have you ever seen that piece of duct tape before?”
“How the hell should I know? No! I haven’t!”
His lawyer said, “How is my client meant to tell that particular piece of tape from any other?”
“Well, you see, Peter, the thing is that you very carelessly left your thumbprint on that piece of tape.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. His lips worked like he was trying to form a word, like he couldn’t find words to describe just how stupid I must be.
“You’re lying, and you know you are lying.”
I turned the bag over to show him where the dusted thumbprint had shown up. “While you’re at it, Peter, maybe you can also tell me about this. What is this?”