Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions

by Rosemarie A D'Amico

  Where did they find his body? I crossed a huge expanse of asphalt towards the fence, scanning the ground, picturing his lifeless corpse, lying unattended. Did he lie on the cold ground, alive, hoping for someone, anyone to help him? Did he lie on the cold ground feeling his life draining away? My breath caught in my throat and I sobbed out loud. When I reached the fence, I laced my fingers through the chain links and stared at the buildings on the other side. And thought about the sick son-of-a-bitch who had shot Tommy and left him here, on the asphalt. Did the killer stand over Tommy and watch him die?

  Anger took the place of grief and I wanted to scream. I turned on my heel and started back towards the main street. Chris, who had been standing by the loading docks watching me, followed along.

  chapter fifty-two

  A familiar-looking Lincoln Town Car was idling at the end of the long roadway leading out of the hospital loading area. As we approached the car, the front passenger door opened and Kelly got out and waited for us. No words were spoken and I put up no fight when he opened the back door of the car. I slid across the seat and he joined me.

  “Have you been following me?” I asked.

  “No ma’am. Chris was watching out for you.”

  “Then what are you doing here now?”

  The car was still parked and I noticed that the driver and Chris were standing on the sidewalk, talking. Kelly turned sideways in his seat to face me and laid his left arm along the back of the leather seat.

  “After I left you this morning, I had a call from Detective Shipley,” he started. This didn’t sound like it was going to be joyous news. “A body was found two days ago and they’ve just made a preliminary identification. Had been dead about a week which hampered their efforts to find out who it is. Shipley said the prelim ID says it’s Dr. Francis.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that and turned my head to the left and stared out the window. Traffic was light and there wasn’t much going on outside the car. Kelly let the silence hang between us.

  Dr. Francis. I’d never met the man, never laid eyes on him. I knew of him for less than a week. So why did I feel so sad? So helpless and hopeless?

  “Did she say how he died?” I asked.

  Kelly shook his head. “No, they’re still doing the autopsy. But the body showed signs of mutilation.”

  My stomach turned.

  “What?” My voice was barely a whisper.

  “Both kidneys had been removed.”

  Oh. My. God.

  “I need to go home. Now. Please.”

  I sat at Tommy’s desk in the formal office space adjacent to the dining room. Besides a telephone, the only thing on the desk was a pad of white, blue-lined paper, on the top of which I had written TO DO. Each item on my to do list took up a line on the sheet and I was three-quarters of the way down the page.

  On the ride home from the Van Buren Health Centre which took less than fifteen minutes, I quickly went from horrified and sickened about the news of the death of Dr. Francis, to my old Sergeant-Major mode. There were things that needed to be done, and done quickly, and correctly. For a brief moment during my horrified and sickened period, I envisioned myself going back to the apartment, packing my suitcase, and heading out to the airport to fly home to Toronto. But I didn’t need my mother’s voice in my head to tell me that there were too many people, employees and families of employees at Phoenix, who were depending on me. Well, not me, per se. They were depending on the company for their wages and well-being. If they actually knew who was at the helm, many would probably run screaming into the streets. Whether the employees and shareholders liked it or not, they were stuck with me, for the immediate future.

  The first thing on my list that needed to be done was to talk to Cleve. Things were getting to a stage that the board of directors needed to be informed. They had been given a report a couple of days ago on the status of the Global Devices contracts and the course of action being taken by management with the SEC and the OSC. I needed advice from Cleve. On what, I wasn’t sure.

  He sounded relaxed when he answered the phone. It was Sunday and I hated to call him at home, but being accessible to your clients twenty-four seven is one of the reasons these guys earn an hourly rate that is close to the GDP of Romania.

  “Kate, I hope everything’s okay,” he said.

  “Not really, Cleve. That’s why I’m calling.” I told him about the police finding the body of Dr. Francis.

  “Oh. That poor man. Was it suicide?”

  “Not likely,” I snorted. “Although we don’t know the cause of death officially, both of his kidneys had been removed.”

  There was a very long pause from Cleve’s end of the phone. I finally had to say something.

  “Cleve. Are you there?”

  “Yeah.” Another long pause. I wasn’t about to interrupt one of the finest minds I knew so I waited. “Look, Kate, this has got to be related to Tommy’s murder. What are the police saying?”

  “No idea, because I haven’t heard from them. I’m sure you remember the two detectives assigned to Tommy’s case. One of them is off sick and the other one is so overwhelmed with cases that I don’t know if she knows what day it is. She called Kelly Northland, our head of security, to tell him about the body. We went to see her on Friday after you and I met for lunch and we brought up the fact that Dr. Francis was missing. She at least paid attention to that fact because that’s how they were able to make a tentative ID on the body.”

  There was so much more to tell him but I wasn’t even sure where to start. Like the fact that Nat Scott and Ben Tucker were nowhere to be found. Or the fact that Ben Tucker and Nat Scott had spent time together in Flagstaff. Or that Ben Tucker wasn’t Ben Tucker and he had served time in a state prison. For crimes I didn’t even want to think about. I needed to tell him about Kelly’s missing guy out in Flagstaff. And the little fact about the threatening email I had received. Altogether these facts, along with two murders, added up to one humongous mess.

  Cleve interrupted my thoughts. “I’m going to make some calls Kate. And then I’m on the next plane down there.”

  “We need to do some more firefighting with the board and the shareholders,” I added.

  “Yep. That’s a given. Let me call you when I’ve got my flights arranged and we can figure out where to meet when I get there.”

  “Fly private. I’ll arrange for the company plane to meet you at the Island Airport and bring you into Teterboro. It’s a lot faster.” Hell, we’d just lost about $50 million in revenues. I didn’t think it would seem excessive to spend another several thousand dollars to fire up the company jet.

  With Cleve here in the City, I would be able to cross off ninety percent of the items on my to do list. Most of the items were things I had to do for the company. Things to protect our company.

  Like its reputation.

  As soon as the newshounds got wind of Dr. Francis’ death and put two and two together, the proverbial shit was going to hit the fan. There is nothing worse for a company than having its name bandied about in the newspaper for things out of the ordinary.

  Ordinary would normally include reports on the financial condition of a company, remarks made at a shareholders meeting, a good news report on a new product. Out of the ordinary would include things like the murder of the CEO and founder of the company, the cancellation of millions of dollars worth of contracts with a major customer, the murder of a senior researcher employed by that customer, or convicted felons working as employees, under assumed names. Out of the ordinary would not be good for our share price. Speculation in the news always leads to a roller coaster ride for the shareholders.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Kelly was talking on his cell phone, and Chris the bodyguard was making coffee when I came into the kitchen. I stood by the door and watched them, and realized I was getting used to having these guys around all the time. Weird, because up until a while ago I considered myself a loner, treasuring my alone time. Admittedly I fel
t safe with the two of them here in my apartment.

  Kelly’s voice was low and he was making notes in his spiral bound notebook. The conversation ended and he flipped his phone shut. He seemed so very tired when he looked up and saw me leaning against the doorframe.

  I gave him a weary smile, letting him know we were in this together.

  “News?” I asked.

  “Nothing much,” he reported. “My geek was able to trace the source of the email you received. But we weren’t able to put a name or identity to it. Seems it was sent on a server at New York University, and it was an NYU email account. Opened just before the email was sent, and closed as soon as the email hit cyberspace. Seems you need to be a registered student at the University to be able to open an email account, but they aren’t willing to share any information with us. They have close to forty thousand students, so it would be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.”

  I joined him at the breakfast counter and heaved myself up onto one of the stools. Chris wordlessly held up a mug, offering me coffee, and I nodded.

  “Any news on our guy in Flagstaff?”

  Kelly shook his head. “Nothing. It’s like he disappeared into thin air.”

  chapter fifty-three

  The stalker re-read the note and smiled in smug satisfaction. The bitch would not get in the way of finishing what was started. Started so long ago. The beginning of this had felt like the end, so long ago. But time was all the stalker had for so very, very long. Time which resulted in getting one’s perspective back. Now that the end was so clearly in sight, the stalker was not about to let anyone get in the way of the finish line. No one. Especially Tom Connaught’s bitch.

  Cleve had a little surprise up his sleeve when he arrived at the apartment, shortly after dinner. My sidekicks and I had Chinese take-out, which on a good night would have been fabulous, but on this night, did little to settle my nervous stomach.

  I was waiting at the apartment door for Cleve to get off the elevator and imagined getting lost in one of his bear hugs. Which would probably put me over the edge and the last thing I needed to be doing was bawling like a baby. So instead of offering myself up for a hug, I greeted him with my hands clasped in front of me.

  “Good flight?”

  “Yeah. That’s the way to travel between Toronto and New York. This time of day, everything would be backed up and most flights are probably late. Coming in on a private plane, having the U.S. Customs Agents meet you, and then jumping into a car right on the tarmac is almost heaven.”

  Cleve settled into one of the wing back chairs and I curled up on one of the sofas in the living room.

  “You need to be brought up to speed on everything else that’s been going on,” I started. “This is one major cluster fuck, with disaster written all over it.” Cleve gave me a distasteful look, and I remembered that he was not fond of my foul mouth. “Sorry.”

  I launched into the long list of events that had happened in the last forty-eight hours. While I talked, Cleve sat quietly, not interrupting, but taking notes on a yellow legal pad which was balanced on his thigh. When I finished he glanced up at me from his note taking, then wrote a few more things before he put the pad and pen on the table beside the chair.

  “Okay, I think I have everything,” he said. “Before I flew down today, I contacted some people, and I’ve arranged for us to meet with the Police Commissioner.”

  “The who?”

  “The Police Commissioner. The chief of police for the New York Police Department.”

  “Yeah, I heard you the first time, Cleve. How did you arrange that? And why would he want to see us?”

  “I called the Prime Minister’s office.” He stated this matter of factly.

  “You called the Prime Minister’s office,” I repeated.

  “Yes. And asked him if he had any connections here in New York.”

  “You called the Prime Minister’s office, and he answered the phone?”

  Cleve chuckled. “I can see you’re obviously easily impressed, Kate. No, I called his office, and his assistant connected me with the Prime Minister, who I believe was at his summer house in Meech Lake. You’ll remember that the Prime Minister used to practice law before he went into politics? He was a partner at our former law firm and we’ve known each for a long time. He told me that his only connection here in New York was with the former mayor, who he had met last year during the September 11th crisis.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “I guess I forgot about that connection.” The Prime Minister had been a lawyer at the law firm where I first met Cleve, but at that time he was just another snotty, senior partner.

  “So, he called the ex-mayor, who put me in touch with the Police Commissioner.” Cleve looked at his watch. “We have a meeting with him in an hour.”

  This was welcome news. Maybe meeting with the Police Commissioner would kick-start some action on the part of NYPD.

  “I’d like Kelly to come along,” I said.

  Cleve was nodding. “Sure, no problem. Did you want to change?” He was staring pointedly at my sweat pants and bare feet.

  “That would probably be for the best.”

  The Commissioner’s office was massive. Like a cliche out of an early Edward G. Robinson movie, the Commissioner was squat, a little on the heavy side, with a barrel chest. He filled out the cliche with a top o’ the morning to ya, Irish lilt. Desmond Patrick Murphy is how he introduced himself and I wondered if people on a first name basis with him called him Desmond Patrick. The only thing missing was a stub of a cigar in the side of his mouth.

  Desmond Patrick took me by the arm and introduced me to the others in the room. Chief of Detectives, Roland Hill. Lieutenant Linda Derek from the 20th Precinct, the precinct having jurisdiction for Tommy’s case. Two other detectives from the 20th Precinct whose names I forgot as soon as we were introduced, and, Detective Shipley, who I acknowledged as having already met. Shipley gave me one of those looks that could kill when Desmond Patrick led me to the table. I’m sure she wasn’t too happy being called to this meeting.

  We were seated around a large conference table. All eyes turned to the Commissioner who was seated at the head of the table, on my right.

  “So, Miss Monahan, I understand you’re a little disappointed with NYPD and how we’re handling this case.”

  Shit. Salvo fired off the poop deck.

  “No, Mr. Murphy. Not at all.” Watch Kate balance on one foot. I did not want to piss anyone off, at least not yet. “We appreciate the time you and your staff are taking for us tonight.” I pointedly looked across the table at Cleve, hoping for some help, but he wasn’t even looking my way. “It’s been two and a half weeks since Mr. Connaught was murdered. We understand that the Detectives don’t have a lot of leads. We asked for some assistance tonight so we could share all the facts as we know them.”

  “Well,” Desmond Patrick interrupted. “My friend the ex-mayor called me this afternoon and asked that we give you some help. That’s why we’re here. So let’s get started.” I guess he wasn’t as insulted as I thought. “Lieutenant Derek,” he barked down the conference table. “What’s the status?”

  “I’ll admit, sir, that we’re not much further along than we were two weeks ago. One of the detectives assigned to the case is on sick leave, and Detective Shipley is working the case alone.”

  “Well, excuse my French but that’s bullshit and the bullshit stops right here.” Desmond Patrick gave everyone a fierce look. “What have you got for us, Miss Monahan?”

  “I’ll defer to Mr. Northland. He’s head of our security detail at Phoenix.” I gave them a quick primer on Kelly’s background so everyone understood they weren’t dealing with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys here.

  “Before Mr. Northland starts though, I’d just like to ask that you respect the confidentiality of some of the information relating to our company.”

  The words were barely out my mouth and I heard Shipley snort a few seats away.


  “Yes?” I looked at her.

  “You can’t ask that we keep information confidential when we’re investigating a murder. Are you asking us to ignore facts? This is just typical of you rich and uppity business types.” Roger that. Confirmed that she was pissed with me.

  Cleve jumped in at this point and put on his best we take umbrage with those remarks personage. “We are not asking that you ignore facts. We are just asking that the confidentiality of certain things we are going to disclose to you be kept confidential, if you can manage that.”

  “Understood,” Mr. Murphy barked again and this time his fierce look was directed at Shipley.

  Kelly proceeded to fill them in, just as we’d discussed in the car on the ride over. I watched the crowd around the table as he gave them the run down. His note book was open in front of him and occasionally he would flip a page, but he didn’t read from it. He was politically correct and addressed most of his remarks directly at Shipley. Not that she hadn’t heard some of this before, I reminded myself. The Commissioner appeared a bit bored, picking at his cuticles. Shipley’s boss Linda Derek took notes but she was outpaced by the Commissioner’s assistant who sat at the far end of the table. He was a young man, probably not yet thirty, of Asian descent, who seemed to be taking down everything that was said verbatim.

  I chastised myself for daydreaming and brought my attention back to Kelly.

  “So, in a nutshell, that’s what we know. We’d like NYPD’s assistance in locating Ben Tucker and Natalie Scott.” I looked at Detective Shipley who was grim-faced and unmoving. She nodded at Kelly.

  “Anything else?” the Commissioner asked. Without waiting for any responses, he slapped both hands down on the table and stood up. I looked at my watch. We’d been here less than fifteen minutes and it appeared that we were being given the bum’s rush.

  “Miss Monahan. Nice meeting you.” He held out his hand and I stood up and gave him a shake. “I’ve got another meeting but please, use my office. The detectives here are tasked with solving this case.” Another fierce look in their direction. “The City of New York takes crime seriously. The murder of one of this city’s citizens is serious business.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “And, we’re sorry for your loss.” In spite of his bluster, I think he meant it.