by James Hayman
Bradshaw fell back, shrieking in agony, his screams so loud, so filled with pain, Zoe could barely believe they had come from a human throat. He stumbled backward and fell to the floor, his hands pressed to his injured ear, a seeming river of blood pouring from the wound. Eyes tightly closed, he rolled his head from one side to the other, clutching the ear, his hands desperately trying to staunch the blood that continued flowing out.
Watching the wounded creature writhing on the floor in pain, Zoe took the knife from the table. Opened the razor-sharp blade. She slid down onto Bradshaw’s chest, straddling him and using her knees to pin his wrists to the floor. She placed the cutting edge of the blade against his carotid artery.
Feeling the touch of the blade he opened his eyes and looked into hers. “Go ahead,” he managed to say, “Go ahead and finish it. Please! Just finish it!”
Zoe paused. Could she do this? Could she kill? Take the life even of a monster like Bradshaw? Before she could bring herself to make the move she felt a slender male forearm circle her neck and pull hard, pulling her backward off her prey. Bradshaw’s suddenly freed left hand grabbed her right hand by the wrist. He twisted hard. The knife fell to the floor.
Chapter 42
Maggie got up and left the interview room. Two uniformed officers who’d been waiting outside came in to escort Ziegler down to the Manhattan Detention Center, aka the Tombs.
“Good job,” said McCabe as an exhausted Maggie returned to the conference room.
“Thanks, but what I really wanted to do was smack that smug bastard across the face.”
“You did a whole lot better than that,” Astarita told her. “You got him to confess to three murders.”
Maggie walked to a large coffee urn that had somehow appeared at the far end of the room and helped herself to a large dose of caffeine. She collapsed in a chair next to Diane Capriati, who was tapping away at her laptop.
“Here it is,” Capriati announced “Hadley and Bradshaw, 144 Wall Street. Big firm. Two hundred and twenty-seven lawyers. Six hundred and forty employees.” She pressed a few more keys. “No Tyler Bradshaw listed among the attorneys.”
“Then who’s the Bradshaw in the Hadley and . . . ?” asked McCabe.
“The boss. One Nicholas Bradshaw, who’s apparently one of the founding partners,” said Capriati.
“Could be Tyler’s dad. Or maybe his uncle,” said Maggie.
“Or possibly no relation,” said Astarita.
“Guess we’d better find out,” said McCabe, glancing at his watch. Five a.m. Zoe had been missing for more than thirty hours and the chances of finding her alive were diminishing with every passing hour. Exhausted or not, the team had to keep going. “Okay,” said McCabe, “since founding partner Nicholas Bradshaw is unlikely gonna be in his office this early, who do you guys call to get a number for his personal cell phone?”
“I’ll get right on it,” said Morales. “May take a little time but I’ll try to move fast.” He left the room and went back to his desk to start making calls.
McCabe next tapped in the number of Tom Delgado, the IT guy who was working his way through hundreds if not thousands of New York State driver’s licenses that had been issued to men with the first name of Tyler. Trying to find the ones who looked even a little like the guy in the sketches and/or the video.
“Hey, McCabe,” said Delgado. “We’re making good progress here. So far DMV’s provided facsimiles of 1,489 valid New York licenses issued to guys with the first name Tyler. When we limit it to guys between the ages of twenty and forty we’re down to 569.”
“I’m gonna make things a whole lot easier for you,” said McCabe.
“Oh yeah?”
“What happens if you add the last name Bradshaw?”
“Tyler Bradshaw? If that’s the guy’s whole name, we’re done. Give me five minutes and I’ll get back to you.”
With nothing to do other than wait for Delgado’s call and for Morales to find Nicholas Bradshaw’s cell number, McCabe went back to the desk Astarita had assigned to him, slumped down in the chair, and stared blankly across the nearly empty room, silently mouthing a prayer that Bradshaw was their guy and that Zoe was still alive.
Delgado called back in three minutes.
“Okay, I’ve got three Tyler Bradshaws for you,” said Tom Delgado. “One’s fifty-nine years old and lives in Spencerport, which is a suburb of Rochester. Number two’s twenty-nine but lives in Oneanta and looks nothing like the guy we’re looking for. Number three’s got to be the one. Tyler Bradshaw. Date of birth 7/14/87 which makes him twenty-nine years old. Address is listed as 1084 Park Avenue in Manhattan.”
McCabe did a quick calculation; 1084 Park would put Bradshaw’s apartment between 88th and 89th Street. Two blocks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A very fancy neighborhood. Not one he would have thought of as a likely home turf for a murderer and kidnapper. Still, you never knew.
“And this Bradshaw looks like our guy?” asked McCabe. “Both sketch and street photo?”
“Spit image. I’ll text you an image of the license.”
Seconds later the image appeared, and McCabe found himself looking at a photo of a guy he was certain was the same one he’d watched walking Zoe home on two frames of the surveillance video. He showed it to Astarita.
“You think we’ll need a warrant to search the apartment?” McCabe asked.
“Not if there’s a chance he’s holding Zoe there,” said Art. “Her life’s obviously in danger. But I’ll get Renee Walker on it right away. Just for insurance.”
“Take long?”
“Nah. We’ve got a judge standing by for just such a call. It’ll take less than an hour. Then I’ll have Walker and Fenton check the place out.”
“All right,” Ramon Morales called out from his desk on the other side of the room. “I’ve got Nicholas Bradshaw’s cell number. Since Zoe’s your niece,” he said, looking over at McCabe, “maybe you want to do the honors?”
McCabe reached for the landline phone on his desk. He wanted Nicholas Bradshaw’s caller ID to signal a call from the New York Police Department and not from some random number in Portland, Maine. Before punching in the number, he asked Astarita to sit down and listen in.
The phone rang five times and then went to message. McCabe broke the connection and punched the number in again. This time a sleepy male voice answered. His first words were, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Yessir. Five-twenty-two a.m. This is Sergeant Michael McCabe and this is a police emergency.”
Nicholas Bradshaw suddenly sounded alert. “What happened? What sort of police emergency?”
“Do you have a son named Tyler Bradshaw?”
McCabe could hear a long angry sigh. “Oh, for God’s sake, what’s that maniac gone and done this time? Beaten somebody up again?”
“Tyler Bradshaw is your son?”
“No. He’s my nephew. My late brother’s son. Both his parents are dead. What’s he done? Started another fight? Beaten somebody up?”
“No sir. We have reason to believe he may have important information about the murder of a woman that took place Sunday night . . .”
“A murder?”
“Yes, a murder. And that he may know about another woman, who if she hasn’t been killed already, is certainly in grave danger.”
“Are you saying you believe Tyler is responsible for these crimes?”
“Right now we’re calling him a person of interest but it’s important that we talk to him.”
“Spare me the legalistic fine points, Sergeant. Do you think Tyler committed these crimes?”
“We have evidence that points that way. Do you have any idea where he might be? Where he might go to hold a young woman captive, to abuse her sexually until he was ready to murder her as well?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. When Bradshaw spoke again, he had somehow been transformed from an angry uncle stirred from his sleep to a hard-ass lawyer prepared for ba
ttle. “Before I give you that kind of information, I’d like to see what kind of evidence you have. Any evidence at all that Tyler was possibly involved in this murder and kidnapping.”
“We have a combination of witness testimony and CCTV footage.”
“Since you’re suggesting my nephew may have murdered someone, I’m afraid I’m going to have to see this evidence for myself before I tell you where I think he might be.”
As McCabe listened to these words, he felt a rage welling up in him. He had a strong desire to go up to Bradshaw’s apartment and pull Mr. Hot-Shit Attorney out of his bed by the short hairs and make him tell them where Bradshaw might be hiding right now. This was exactly the kind of reaction Astarita had warned him against. Rather than risk losing his temper and the possible cooperation of the only man they had in their sights who might know where Zoe was, McCabe signaled Astarita and asked Art to take over the conversation.
“Excuse me, Mr. Bradshaw, I’m going to turn this call over to my superior Lieutenant Art Astarita. He’ll be able to tell you more.”
Art got on the phone. “Mr. Bradshaw. Lieutenant Art Astarita. I’m heading up the NYPD task force investigating the current spate of serial killings. We’ll be happy to discuss the reasons why we need to talk to your nephew. But we need to do that as soon as possible. A woman’s life is at stake.”
“I understand that. But I’m not giving you the address until I see the evidence.”
Astarita sighed loudly. “Can you come down to the Seventh Precinct on Pitt Street?”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Fine. I just need to get dressed. I’ll be there in an hour. Six-thirty on the dot.”
Chapter 43
Thanks to a combination of total exhaustion plus a couple of the hydrocodone tablets that Bradshaw had provided and that she’d washed down with sips of wine, Zoe had managed to sleep fitfully on the filthy bare mattress for what she supposed was most of the night. But now the pills had worn off and excruciating pain and bright light from a single bare bulb was bringing her back to consciousness. She tried opening her eyes. Her right eye was swollen shut from the beating she’d gotten but the left one seemed uninjured. The throbbing in her right wrist was so bad she thought Bradshaw must have broken a bone when he twisted it, forcing her to drop the knife. The blade had been touching his throat and she silently cursed herself for hesitating when she had the chance. For not plunging it in before Tucker grabbed her and the chance was over. If only she’d done so, this nightmare might have been over. So near and yet so far.
Well, she thought, her plan to fascinate Bradshaw enough that he’d want to keep her alive had certainly turned to shit in a hurry. The problem was her own inability to keep from fighting back by taunting him verbally and then driving the corkscrew into his ear. And, of course, her inability to finish him off with the knife when she had the chance.
She tried moving the wrist, and though movement was painful, she found it was possible. Since he’d removed the cuffs she was able to use her uninjured left hand to feel all around the wrist. She could find no obvious breaks. Perhaps it was only a sprain. She next examined the area around her swollen right eye and cheek and jawbone. She felt both heat and extreme swelling on the right side of her face. She was sure she was badly bruised. She wondered if Bradshaw had broken her jaw when he punched her and knocked her unconscious. She opened and closed her mouth a few times. It hurt, but at least she could manage it. She tried moving her jaw from left to right. Same result. The punch was so hard and her bones so thin, she was sure he must have broken something. But as far as she could tell, everything seemed to have remained intact. She took a quick inventory of her condition. One eye swollen shut. One wrist probably sprained, possibly broken. And for some reason there was a throbbing pain in her right earlobe. She reached up and felt the ear. Where her small circular silver earring had once been, she felt only ripped, rough skin. One of the Bradshaws, Tyler or Tucker, must have ripped the earring out during the fight. It was an inexpensive earring . . . a birthday present from her cousin Casey when she turned twenty-one. . . but it was part of a pair she really liked and wore often. Still, she supposed it was just a minor wound compared to the others. At least she wasn’t dead. Not yet. Though she was certain death would be coming soon enough. And when it did, she’d no longer feel badly about losing a twenty-five-dollar earring.
The next thing she noticed was the mattress she was lying on. No more than three or four inches thick, covered in stained black and white striped ticking, lying on an iron cot. It was the kind of bed you see in movies about prisons. The kind she used to sleep on at summer camp when she was a little kid, except this mattress stunk and there wasn’t any upper bunk. As a camper she’d always loved sleeping on the upper bunk.
She was still dressed as she had been during her last battle, except now both her sweater and her jeans were covered with dried and drying blood. Most of it had probably spilled from Bradshaw’s ear. Though she supposed some of it might have been hers. She wasn’t sure.
She looked around the cell. The same one Bradshaw’s father had locked his sons in when he wanted to punish them. It was small. Ten by ten at most. Dirt floor. Cinder-block walls. There was no door. The only way to get in or out of this underground prison was by climbing up a wooden ladder that led up to a rough wooden hatch that had been cut into the ceiling. She was certain the hatch was kept locked, and not by one of the thumb-recognition locks they used upstairs. After all, why bother with technology? All they needed here, on this last stop on the road to death, was an old-fashioned padlock. Next to the ladder was a rough wooden table. None of Tyler Bradshaw’s hand-carved furniture had found its way down here. Just a small prescription bottle and a liter of Poland Spring water. On the opposite side from the bed was a commode chair with a white bucket attached underneath the seat. Apparently, the inmates were allowed both to drink and to pee. Zoe managed to get up, walk over, and lower herself onto the seat. She wondered if Bradshaw emptied and cleaned the attached bucket himself or left such unpleasant tasks to poor Tucker. When she’d finished, she pulled a length of toilet paper off one of the two rolls that had been placed on the floor next to the commode. Was the fact that there were two rolls a good sign? Did it mean he wanted to keep her alive long enough for her to go through more than one? At this point, she found she simply didn’t care. She just wanted the pain to stop.
She managed to pull up and button her bloodstained jeans without causing too much stress to her injured wrist. Then she staggered over to the table, where she took a double dose of hydrocodone from the prescription bottle and washed the pills down with a long swig of water. She went back to the bed and lay down. It only took a couple of minutes before she dropped off to sleep again. This time she didn’t dream of death.
Chapter 44
Astarita’s cell vibrated. “Renee Walker,” he mouthed to the others and put the phone on speaker.
“Hey, boss man. Will and I are in Tyler Bradshaw’s fancy Park Avenue apartment. The super let us in without a warrant. All I had to do was threaten him with some phony obstructing justice bullshit.”
“And?”
“And we’re standing in his living room right now. Nice apartment. Plenty of light. Plenty of space. Beautiful handmade modern furniture that probably cost this guy a fortune. I’d take it over my place in Queens in a minute.”
“I take it there’s no Tyler Bradshaw in residence?”
“You got it. I got the sense from the doorman that he hasn’t been here in a while. Still, I’d get a crime scene unit up here quick as you can. There’s bound to be plenty of Tyler’s DNA around we can use to compare to whatever we get from Clinton Street and from that gob of chewing gum McCabe found under the theater seat. If they all match, case closed. Bradshaw’s our guy.”
“Thanks, Renee. We’ve got Bradshaw’s uncle coming in any minute now. We’re hoping he knows where to find him.”
“Good. Let me know.”
McCabe thought Bradshaw looked exactly like a casting director’s choice for someone to play the role of managing partner of a successful white-shoe law firm. He definitely looked out of place within the confines of a Lower East Side precinct house. McCabe guessed Bradshaw was somewhere in his late fifties or possibly early sixties. He stood six foot two or three with perfectly groomed white hair. McCabe guessed his flat stomach and broad shoulders were probably maintained by hours spent in the gym at the University Club or Yale Club or whatever other den of privilege Nicholas Bradshaw liked to frequent. His gray pin-stripe suit looked custom-made. His tie was perfectly knotted and the handkerchief peeking out from the jacket pocket formed a small, precise double triangle. All of these accouterments were to be expected and none of it bothered McCabe, except perhaps for the look of smug arrogance plastered on Bradshaw’s face.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Astarita asked as the three men sat down at one end of the conference table.
“No, thank you. I’d like to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible,” said Bradshaw.
“So would we,” said McCabe. “The faster we find your nephew, the more likely we are to save a young woman’s life. So let me take you through what we’ve got. Sunday night, this young woman, an actress named Zoe McCabe, was having a late dinner with a friend following her twelfth and final performance as Desdemona in Othello.”
“Is the last name McCabe a coincidence? Or are you related to the victim, Sergeant?”
There was no point in lying. McCabe knew such a lie could create problems for the case going forward. “Yes, I’m her uncle,” he said. “But I am also an experienced police detective and, because I do know the victim, I’ve been asked to work on this by NYPD’s chief of detectives.”