by Mel Odom
“You can’t say that until you have proof.”
“I’ll get it. It’s too widespread, too prevalent not to have some kind of truth in there.”
“If you don’t step lightly, you won’t be around much longer to find out what kind of truth is there.”
“Is that the cop talking,” Wilson asked in a soft voice, “or is it the politician?” Before Vache could answer, he tapped the keyboard and started up the alley scene again.
The minicam view faded and was replaced by the cool, calloused movement of a police-lab technician. Each body was photographed in sequence and became a collage of horror.
“You lose a lot with videotape,” Wilson said. “I was there in that alley. You could smell the death lingering in the air. VapoRub didn’t cut it much. And then there’s the suction of the blood on your shoes. After a couple minutes, everywhere you walked, you squeaked.” He paused. “They killed them all, Earl. Eighteen men, six women, and seven kids between the ages of four and twelve.”
The procession of dead faces with empty eye sockets stared blankly at the unwinking eye of the camera.
“They killed them just like the ones in the other states. A pair of twenty-two LRs through the ear so the optic nerves could be harvested. Then they husked them.”
The camera pulled back to show the naked bodies with loose flaps of bloody flesh where their stomachs and chests used to be.
“The butcher work was thorough,” Wilson said, “but it wasn’t neat. They were in a hurry. This was the largest number of people they’d ever husked. Not all of them were opened with sternal saws or knives. Some of them, especially the children, were opened with what the lab techs think were heavy scissors. They took the hearts, livers, eyes, kidneys, pancreases, and lungs, all in a matter of hours. We missed them by minutes, and it seemed awfully convenient at the time that we were looking in all the wrong places.”
“That sounds like an accusation.”
“It will be when I find the proof.” Wilson cut the programming and turned the lights back on. “This jackal network is big, and they’re fast. If we don’t shut them down soon, there are going to be more dead people turning up somewhere. They had a road locker ready to roll at the meat dump. Somebody is expecting a new lease on life somewhere at this very minute. The supplier won’t wait long before going out again. There’s too much money to be made in this business.”
Vache drank his coffee, then reached into his pocket for a stick of gum. He took his hat off and flipped it unerringly onto the coatrack standing in the corner. “The House subcommittee is going to string us up, you know.”
Wilson smiled. “Only if they get the chance. I’m working on some angles.”
“Like what?”
“It’s better that you don’t know.”
“Terrific. I feel relieved already. You can’t keep playing cowboy out here, Slade. You were put in as SAC over Omega because you got so much press over the Hubatka investigation. The press loved talking about the hero FBI agent who took on the Organization almost single-handedly and won.”
“You and I both know that wasn’t true. There were a lot of other people involved in that.”
“No, but it made a good read. The Omega Blue unit was put into play during an election year and received a lot of popular support.”
“We’re in an election year again.”
“Yeah, but the popularity of cowboy cops is in decline. The bureaucrats might not be willing to stick their necks out quite as far this term.”
“If we can give them a big win in the next couple of months before the election rolls around again, maybe that feeling will change.”
“Yeah, well until then let me remind you the subcommittee controlling Omega Blue funding is looking for ways to shoot down our current president’s hopes for reelection. Since your unit was a pet project of his, and has had a lot of notoriety in the media, making us look bad could be a big step for them. Just giving them the blue-collared stiffs working the jackal network isn’t going to be enough.”
“Then we’re going to have to give them the people behind it, aren’t we?”
“What have you got to work with?”
“Two interrogation rooms. Rawley and Mac are working the prisoners in one of them now. So was I until I was told you were in the building. Maggie and Darnell are following up leads on the street. A lot of the talent at the meat dump was local. That means there was a lot of money coming into this area. Somebody had to have been brokering it. With luck, and the fact that Darnell used to work the Georgia turf, maybe they’ll turn something up.”
“Anything so far?”
“Not yet. Whoever’s pulling the strings on this operation is clever. Either these people don’t know anything about who they were working for, or they’re scared of him.”
“Probably a combination of both.” Vache took his trench coat and jacket off, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeves. “Can you use an old war-horse who used to be a good field agent?”
Wilson nodded. “Yeah. I figured you and I would double-team the guys in the other room. Between us, we’ve got six guys to go.”
“Is the coffee down there any better?”
“No.”
“Maybe we should think about sending out for some, while we’re still on an expense account.”
Shifting his attention back to the desk, Wilson picked up the yellow legal pad he’d used to jot some questions down. He handed Vache a thin manila file. “Give that a look on the way down. It’s pretty straight-forward and will give you something to play off of.”
Vache accepted the folder, then put a hand on Wilson’s shoulder and squeezed in a fatherly way. “I’m sorry about Emmett. I know that was tough. He was a good man.”
“Thanks.” Wilson led the way out of the office. He pushed the dark thoughts away; he needed to concentrate on the interrogations.
*
Maggie Scuderi watched the wild gyrations of the nude dancer on the fog-bound stage, her body speared by an assortment of neon lights. Scuderi leaned toward Darnell January and said, “You aren’t going to tell me that you used to hang around these kinds of places when you were working in Georgia.”
January seemed uncomfortable. “Strictly in the line of duty.”
“Right.” Scuderi sipped her wine and scanned the faces of the men, whose attention was solely on the nude woman. The dancer was actually pretty good, Scuderi knew. She’d spent five years working sex crimes in Washington, D.C., before moving on to the Bureau. Her working knowledge of places like the Veined Crayon was extensive, and in her opinion the bar’s decor was scraping bottom, especially the elaborately-shaped swizzle sticks provided in the drinks. But she had to admit that the dancers were good.
The two state policemen escorting them had tried to embarrass her first in the way that nearly every male vice cop that she’d ever worked with had tried to do. It hadn’t worked. She hadn’t figured January for any of the ribbing, but she hadn’t expected his reticence either.
Darnell January was six feet six inches tall, a rich, dark ebony, and built like a good football linebacker. Scuderi had acquired an appreciation for the sport during eight years of marriage. Johnny had been an avid Redskins fan. She’d stopped going to the games last year after he’d been shot and killed while working a burglary on his beat. Johnny’s murderer still hadn’t been found. Emmett Newkirk’s death had just brought all those old memories back, a cauldron of pain she had to shut out.
“You okay?” January asked.
She glanced up at him and made herself smile. “Yeah. Just lost in thought for a moment.”
January was probably the most intuitive member of Omega Blue, she realized. Although he looked big and ponderous, he moved with a catlike grace. He’d graduated from Georgia State Tech with an engineering degree but hadn’t found a job in his chosen field. After two years of looking, he got a job with the Savannah Police Department. Three years ago he’d moved into the FBI, and two years later he became Omega Blue’s d
emolitions expert. There had been a lot of other applicants for the position, but selection for the special anticrime task force didn’t go by seniority or political privilege. Slade Wilson had picked January because the man was good at what he did, and because January worked well within the group’s framework. With three brothers and three sisters, January was used to crowds and emotional crises.
“There’s your guy,” Hennessey, one of the Staties, said. He was young and lean, already hard around the edges.
“What’s his name?” January asked.
“Osterbach. Terry Osterbach.”
Scuderi studied the man as he threaded his way through the crowd to the four-sided bar in the center of the room. “How good is he?”
“Whatever he gives you,” Hennessey said, “you can take to the bank. He’s a good stoolie, but his contacts are sometimes less than what you’d hope for. He doesn’t get involved in the heavy dirt.”
Osterbach was three or four inches over six feet in height, but he lost a lot of that in his stoop-shouldered posture. He wore black-rimmed glasses, an oxford shirt with the tails hanging out, patched jeans, and work boots. After taking a seat at the bar, the man ran his fingers through his greasy blond hair to push it back out of his eyes, and opened a paperback book that was dog-eared and taped.
Scuderi was impressed. Reading was a skill most street people didn’t have. “What’s his story?”
“Twelve years ago he was a teacher,” Hennessey said. “Taught grade school somewhere. Then the federal cutbacks caught up with him and he was unemployed. He tried making it on the state dole, but he had three kids and a wife with big eyes for material assets. A few years later, Osterbach was busted for moving blue angel and cocaine across the state. Not actually dealing, but doing mule work from the coast. He took a five-year fall. He did forty-two months, got out, found out he’d been divorced and that his wife had taken the kids to California with a young exec she’d vamped while he was away. It’s no secret. Guy still tells the story if you ask.”
“And since then?”
“He does whatever he can get his hands on. As long as it doesn’t involve carrying a gun. I heard he killed a guy in the pen with a homemade shank, but that was never proved. Could be Osterbach started the rumor himself to buy some breathing room out on the street. Still, he doesn’t know you people so you’d want to be careful about closing up on him.”
“That’s why you guys are here to do the intros,”
January said with a broad smile.
Scuderi envied her partner’s ability to seem cheerful. Now that Newkirk’s death had brought Johnny’s murder to the forefront of her mind again, she knew it would be more than a week before she got another good night’s sleep.
“Let’s go do that.” Hennessey pushed himself up out of his chair.
January followed.
Grabbing her purse and smoothing the mid-thigh black spandex dress she’d changed into for the bar trolling, Scuderi trailed along behind. Her Delta Elite 10mm was in her purse. There was no place for it under the leather half-jacket she was wearing.
The music was louder down near the bar pit area. Bass thumps rebounded off the walls, and the dancer onstage threw her hips to the beat as she held onto the brass rail that ran from floor to ceiling. Cigarette smoke hung in coils around the dim bulbs mounted on the unmarked walls.
Scuderi felt a hand wander out of the crowd just behind her and start to skate down her hip. Reaching out, she caught the offending appendage, then nerve-pinched the little finger in a move her sensei had taught her to perform almost imperceptibly. She walked on as the man dropped to his knees, yelling in pain.
A pair of burly bouncers wearing polo shirts with the club’s name embroidered on them pushed through the crowd and yanked the man up before he could get off his knees. As he started to verbally defend himself, one of the bouncers put a hand over the guy’s mouth. They escorted him quickly to an exit and threw him out.
“You’ll have to show me that one,” Carris, the other Statie, said.
“Get molested like that a few times,” Scuderi said, “and you’ll pick it up quick.”
Hennessey elbowed his way through the cluster of people at the bar on one side of Osterbach, while January eased into place on the other side.
Scuderi stayed back with Carris to cover the floor.
During earlier sessions when they’d pumped known stoolies for information, January had mentioned that he had the impression that someone knew they were out looking for leads. There was nothing solid that he could point to, but when the big man had hunches, Scuderi had learned to listen.
Osterbach looked up at Hennessey when the Statie spoke to him, then gently closed his book and held his place with a forefinger.
The music died away for a moment. The DJ, sounding as excited as a carnival-show barker on speed, announced the next dancer as the previous one gathered up her abandoned clothing and the dollar bills littering the stage floor. The new dancer was Asian, as sleek and dainty as a Dresden doll, but Scuderi could tell that her breasts had been surgically augmented. She wore a sapphire gossamer gown that revealed the black teddy underneath. Hoots and whistles greeted her as she started dancing to an old ZZ Top tune, “She’s Got Legs.”
Hennessey nodded to January, and Osterbach looked at the FBI agent. A moment later they left the bar together and headed for the back door. Her purse open for easy access to the pistol, Scuderi pushed her way through the crowd after them.
The door opened into a narrow alley filled with the smell of garlic, onions, pine disinfectant, rotting vegetables, and urine. Puddles gleamed wetly along the uneven pavement. Three of the bar’s patrons were facing the brick wall of the building and relieving themselves by the Dumpster under the metal fire-escape stairs. They zipped up and moved off quickly, obviously reading the cop taint in the Staties’ body language despite the street clothes. They went back inside the bar. Closing time was still two hours away.
A half-dozen feline shapes were clustered in the low windows of basement apartments and on the trash cans lining the alley. Jaundice yellow eyes tracked the movement of the five humans in the passageway.
January flipped open his badge case and gave his name. If Osterbach recognized what the cobalt blue shield really meant, he gave no indication. The shield didn’t cut much ice with the local law enforcement wherever the team was, but it worked miracles with Justice Department personnel.
Osterbach bummed a cigarette from Hennessey, then borrowed a lighter. Smoke curled into the dark, oppressive air.
“You know what we’re here for, Terry,” Hennessey said as he leaned against the wall.
Osterbach nodded. The coal of his cigarette glowed orange as he took a drag. “The meat dump.”
“Yeah. What can you tell me about it?”
“The way I hear it, the FBI blew it up.”
Scuderi knew from the way Hennessey moved that the Statie was about to get physical. Some of it might have stemmed from aggravation, but some of it she knew was because she was a woman and she was there watching him do his job. Law enforcement drew out the macho complex in most men, and she regretted the fact that sometimes her sex only complicated those feelings.
Moving smoothly, January inserted himself between Osterbach and Hennessey. An easy smile came to his face. “Actually, they blew themselves up when they found out we were there.”
“Tried to get rid of the evidence.”
“Yeah.”
Osterbach squinted up at January. “That dump was a heavily protected piece of property. The people behind it put a lot of grease out on the street to make sure nobody wised up about it. Some of that grease funneled its way into the pockets of the local gendarmes.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” Hennessey said.
Osterbach held his hands up in front of his face as if expecting a blow. When it didn’t come, he said, “Hey, Brian, if you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen. You came banging on my door. I didn’t come to you.”
“Chill,” January told the Statie. He turned his attention back to the stoolie. “I’m not here after the protection money. That flows in all directions once an operation like this has set down roots. I’m after the guy who put the thing together.”
His jaw forming a stubborn line, Osterbach said, “What I’m telling you is that the meat dump had protection. I tell you anything I know, it’s going to cost. If it’s tracked back to me, and it will be, I’d better be long gone for a while. You catch my drift?”
“If you give me something good,” January said, “I’ll arrange for a little vacation.”
“Someplace south. The Caribbean’s good this time of year.”
January glanced at Scuderi as if asking permission. Scuderi knew it was part of the act the big man was selling Osterbach. Wilson had empowered any of the team to make whatever deals were reasonable and necessary, without checking with him and possibly blowing a lead or losing time. That January had checked with her as though she were a superior lent a thin veneer of credibility to the offer.
She gave him a tight nod and stepped forward. “But if you screw us around, I’ll see to it that you go back inside prison for obstructing a federal officer in the performance of his duty.”
Osterbach smiled. “Lady, some days I wish I was back inside because the rules in the joint are a lot easier to learn. And they’re actually rules, not behaviors of convenience the way these jerks out here play. If I make a deal with you, it’ll be a good one.”
“How does Jamaica sound?” January asked.
Osterbach shook his head. “Something farther south. Jamaica’s only a short plane flight away. I want Trinidad.”
“Done,” Scuderi said.
Cars whipped by on the streets at both ends of the alley. Their lights sprayed out over the few people walking the sidewalks and illuminated the boarded-over windows of the abandoned buildings in the neighborhood.
“Who owns the meat dump?” January asked.