by Mark Wheaton
The apartment was so meticulous that he worried the shoes could only have been in the closet or on her feet during her last moments. If that was the case, the amount of bullshitting he’d have to do to get at them might be significant.
But then he realized that, if what Becca had said was true, Mrs. Fowler might not have been herself lately. So he moved into her bedroom and began looking around for the shoes there.
Then he saw them. They were beige with a slight quarter-inch lift from faux wooden heels. She hadn’t even bothered to clean them. The blood stain matched the one in the print-out exactly.
Leonhardt sat down on the floor and stared at the wall. The ramifications of the discovery washed over him. They were planning to search Mrs. Fowler’s apartment for PCP they could trace to Alvis’s apartment. They’d already found a match there for what had been found in Mr. Lester’s stomach. It would’ve made this one easy.
But now he was on telepathic dog duty. A dog that told people to kill.
That’s when something rang a bell way in the back of his mind. It was an old memory and took some time to excavate, but after a minute or two, he had a name.
Harvey.
X
“Where’s Ken?”
“Don’t know. They said they were calling him. He’s supposed to pick me up.”
Trey nodded. He glanced up at Garza but then stared deep into Becca’s eyes.
“You know what’s going on in there. You need to communicate that to Ken. When you get home, you’ve got to throw some shit in a backpack and get the fuck out of Dodge. You walk in, you walk out. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t mean to rain on your parade here, but she’s going to need to stay in the area in case we need to question her,” Garza interjected.
Trey regarded Garza for a moment before turning back to Becca. “No. You’re not listening to that guy. If you’re not under arrest, they can’t make you stay. You get the fuck out of here. Understood?”
“Hey!” Garza interjected. “You want us to put some kind of other charge on you?”
“Knock yourself out, dickhead,” Trey said without looking. “You know how many people have died in my building the past few days? The numbers aren’t great. You want to throw another charge on me? That just means I’m safely locked up out here away from all that for a couple more days. Not the case with my sister or brother, got it?”
Becca tried to hide a smile. It wasn’t that Trey was defending her as much as him calling her his “sister” without qualifying it with some verbiage about “half-” or her having a different mom.
Garza considered a response, but then bit his tongue. Trey turned back to Becca, lowering his voice.
“There are going to be a lot of opinions about what you did. For me, I think it was pretty brave. I know you were scared, I know you weren’t sure about what you were doing, but what you did know was that something bad was going to go down and you walked out the front door to do something about it. I don’t care if you’re nine or ninety, that’s a rare thing in a person. I’m proud of you.”
Becca had tears in her eyes as Trey reached out to touch her arm.
“Was that your girlfriend?” she asked.
“She might’ve been one day,” Trey replied with what he thought a decent man would say in that situation. “She was pretty special. I think you would’ve liked her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I. But that’s on Alvis. I don’t want you thinking about it twice, okay?”
“Okay,” Becca said quietly.
Trey tightened his grip on her arm as she wept more freely.
• • •
Ken arrived a few hours later to find Becca asleep on a bench. His manager had given him shit about leaving him in a lurch, so Ken had quit on the spot and gone back home in the mistaken belief that Becca was home. He’d received several messages about the incident, but information about Trey’s arrest hadn’t been a part of it. He was in agreement with his younger brother, however, that the answer was to leave. He’d cashed out some savings and called a coworker about borrowing his SUV. By the time he got to the police station, he’d already called a hotel down in Ocean City on the Jersey Shore and booked a pair of rooms.
“I thought you might want some time to yourself,” he explained to Becca, who was indeed grateful for his thoughtfulness.
Like Becca, Ken was allowed in to see Trey, but for a shorter amount of time. Trey told Ken exactly what happened. When Ken nodded to Garza, particularly when Trey mentioned running to get the gun from Alvis’s couch, Trey shrugged.
“I appreciate you thinking I’m smart enough to come up with a good lie to get me out of here, but I’m stuck. The truth is probably the only thing I’ve got going for me.”
Ken couldn’t help but agree.
“You have enough money for the week?”
“It’ll be tight, but yeah. You have some big stash I don’t know about?”
“My cut of the money from selling Mr. Lester those pills,” Trey offered.
Garza grunted from the corner of the room. “Don’t push it, kid.”
Ken sighed.
“Do me a favor and call my phone every chance you get,” the older of the brothers requested. “When you find out when you’re getting out, call me. We’ll be here to pick you up.”
“I don’t know what kind of bail they’re going to set.”
“We’ll raise it. We’re family. We’re all we got. Okay?”
“Okay.”
The brothers embraced. A moment later, Ken collected Becca, signed a stack of papers presented to him by a new and less irate social services worker, and carried the tired little girl out to the car.
By sunrise, they were southbound on the Jersey Turnpike.
Two hours later, asleep in adjoining rooms two blocks from the beach.
• • •
“Morning, officer. We haven’t met. I’m Detective Phil Leonhardt, NYPD.”
Leonhardt extended his hand. Bones eyed the offering for a moment from behind the chain-link gate of his narrow concrete kennel, but then leaned forward and gave it a sniff.
“I know you’re accustomed to being on the enforcement side of things, but you’ve become a witness on this case. Means that you might be pressed into service before you get to fully recover.”
Leonhardt reached into a duffel bag he’d brought into the kennel with him. He began extracting evidence bags and opening each, placing the contents on the floor in front of Bones.
“These were taken from the apartments of Mrs. Fowler and Mr. Lester,” he explained, setting out two impromptu dog dishes as well as towels and blankets he’d collected off their respective floors. “I’ve always been told that I had a good nose, but yours is supposed to be legendary. Well, I need you to use it now.”
Bones sniffed the items through the gate and became excited. Leonhardt had been told the shepherd would still be groggy from being put under the night before, but it was clear something to do with the items had gotten the animal’s attention.
“Yeah, you know that smell, huh?” Leonhardt grinned. “They say there’s nothing more suspect than an eyewitness account. But something tells me your nose is slightly more accurate than most humans’ eyes. What do you say?”
Bones met Leonhardt’s gaze. The detective smiled, taking this to mean the shepherd was looking for a rematch.
“Good. ‘Cause this may not be your ordinary everyday dog.”
• • •
Ten days passed.
That was how long it took Detective Leonhardt and Bones, quietly and with occasional assistance from Detective Garza, to search the buildings of Neville Houses from top to bottom. Officially, they were on the hunt for drugs, which is why they were allowed such latitude. The police department hadn’t publicly identified a link between the deaths at the different buildings, but if Garza’s theory about drugs held any water, they’d happily announce it from the rooftops.
But after ten d
ays, Bones hadn’t alerted to a single thing related to the mysterious missing dog. While he had led to a handful of minor drug arrests and the identification of four more squats used by illegals, this had nothing to do with what Leonhardt wanted out of him.
“Pretty sure it’s half past time to pack it in on this one,” Garza announced on day nine. “This just isn’t getting us anywhere.”
By then, even Leonhardt had to agree with this. They’d asked several residents to give them a call if they came across a strange dog in the area. So spooked was everybody that the calls came rolling in. Neighbors’ pets were reported, stray cats were added to the mix, and one lady turned in her own pooch.
Twice.
But not a one successfully described the animal on the footage from the Fowler shooting.
With Trey’s permission, his laptop had been recovered from the Baldwin apartment, as well as the camera. Threats were made about additional charges, but Leonhardt made sure that these went away as quickly as they were put forward.
“Jesus Christ,” muttered Garza as he watched the video for the first time. “Nobody should ever see this.”
“Wishful thinking,” Leonhardt replied.
The truth was, as soon as it came in the door, copies of the digital recording were sent to the mayor’s office, the office of the police commissioner, and the team tasked with investigating the shooting. Within the hour, however, duplicates made it into every precinct in Manhattan and quickly fanned out to the other boroughs. By evening, word would leak to the television news, and screen grabs would make it online.
“So, what now?” Garza asked on day ten, the day the lieutenant formally asked for their report. “Send the dog back to Pittsburgh?”
Leonhardt didn’t have a ready answer.
“I mean, the dog’s clearly gone, right? He’s there in the video, I believe the little girl that he was there on the roof. Something whacked our fellow officer around. But that’s the end of it.”
“And the bloody shoeprint?”
“Mrs. Fowler was fucked-up on PCP.”
“Even though her apartment was clean?”
“Repeat after me: Mrs. Fowler was fucked-up on drugs.”
“What about the dog bowl and blankets in the Lester apartment?” Leonhardt retorted. “Bones alerted to them.”
“Do me a favor and think like a detective…hell, a rational human being for a single second. Rather than believe it was drugs, you’re going to go down the garden path of this being some killer dog. I went along with it when I thought there might be some dangerous animal in there, because something bad happened and searching those buildings was better than working any day. But, we didn’t find anything. It’s over. And you really need to come back to earth and see that.”
• • •
Ocean City was so far removed from Becca’s day-to-day existence that, at first, she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She’d been out to Coney Island a couple of times, which had a boardwalk and games, too, but Ocean City was so small in comparison. There were rows and rows of two-story wood frame and aluminum siding houses on narrow streets beyond the beach, but many seemed empty. Though Ken had advised her to stick close to the boardwalk when she left the hotel on her own, Becca had grown tired of it after only a day.
No, the neighborhoods were of more interest. Though the houses were very much the same in their construction, each had touches of personality. Becca liked to imagine who might live there, even part time. Was the faded windsock something with such sentimental value that even though it looked awful, it just couldn’t be thrown out? Same for a coconut and bamboo set of wind chimes that looked brought back from an island vacation? What of all the little metal cats and roosters and pigs and every other animal under the sun propped up on porches and windowsills?
Becca would see how many streets she could go without seeing a living person. There would always be some car in the distance to ruin her fun, but occasionally, she’d go four or five blocks with nothing. No airplane overhead, no laughter echoing up from the beach, only the wind.
It was like being the last person on earth.
She hadn’t wanted to bother Ken too much. He stayed in his room on the phone almost nonstop except when heading out for food or when checking on Becca.
“Trey met with the court-appointed lawyer this morning,” he told her over breakfast on the third day. “There’s some concern that the primary witness in his defense is his own sister, but enough people saw and heard you on the roof to put you there at the time of the shooting. The other good news is that the preliminary ballistics tests and crime scene reports all back up to a letter your and Trey’s recollection of events.”
“When will he get out?”
“They have to set bail, and that’ll happen this week. They’re going to try and get it set pretty low. I already talked to a bond company. I had to lie and say I hadn’t quit my job. I just hope I get another one before they check up.”
“Do you think you can find one?”
“You remember meeting Gus, the guy who came and fixed our plumbing that one day? He does maintenance in the building. I called him because he’d mentioned they were always looking for people. He said he’d put me in touch with Mr. Uribe, who runs all those guys. Said it’s the easiest job in the world.”
“What about school?”
“I talked to Mrs. Drucker. She understood. Said they could email you your assignments to print out if we got to a computer down here.”
Becca scowled. Ken shook his head.
“None of that. You still need to be focused on your schooling. You know that. This isn’t an excuse to let that slip. You fall behind even a little bit and that can cost you in the long run.”
Becca understood, but the thought of being cooped up in her motel room with the sun and sand within reach sounded like torture. Ken seemed to recognize this and softened a little.
“Maybe we’ll go find that computer tomorrow.”
It had been a massive undertaking, but the New York Police Department had eventually digitized just about all of its records. The only problem with that was any time anyone sought out an older file, an electronic footprint linking the officer doing the search to said file was left behind.
What Leonhardt desired was the opposite. He wanted to peer into a file with complete anonymity. The file he sought was one of the most notorious in the history of the department, right next to John Gotti, Bernie Goetz, and the Mad Bomber. The Criminal Records Section offices four blocks west of the former World Trade Center had become a real graveyard since the digitizers left. If you were assigned there, the question wasn’t if you fucked up, but how much higher up the food chain was the person who got fucked because of your fuck-up. There was shit detail with little chance for advancement. Then there was the prison cell of records.
“Vincent! Hey, Vincent!”
Leonhardt banged on the cage leading into the closed-access archive. Vincent Harrell was back there somewhere as he was every day, either watching television or reading the paper. He’d actually petitioned the department for a larger television complete with DVR and gotten it a few years before. He was a nut for the Mets, having grown up on Long Island. During the season, he’d record the game from the night before (and whatever other game was being televised unless it involved a certain Bronx-Area rival that favored pinstripes) and watch it through once or twice during the following day. This meant his mornings had become downright ritualistic in his avoidance of learning the previous day’s score. At first, it was a joke. Officers would look for ever more inventive ways to spoil his game.
Then he punched out a guy and got written up, called on the carpet, and almost kicked out. The attitude since then had become, well, if he’s THAT serious about it. And he was left alone to enjoy his games.
“Vincent!! Come on, man! It’s Leonhardt!”
After a couple more minutes, a mountain of a man appeared at the end of the hallway, so wide that he just about touched both walls at the same ti
me.
“Phil! How the hell are you?”
“Good, man. On a bit of a mission.”
“That doesn’t sound good at all,” the officer said as he unlocked the gate. “This about all that up in Harlem?”
“This isn’t about anything, Vince. I was never here.”
“Oh, shit! You’re putting yourself in my debt here. That’s something. What are you looking for?”
“Berkowitz.”
“Jesus. You’re not looking to sell something on eBay, are you? Getting bribed by someone writing a new book?”
“No. You were right the first time.”
Vincent’s face went blank, but then he furrowed his brow.
“That thing in Harlem?” he asked.
“That thing in Harlem.”
XI
Fifteen minutes later, Leonhardt found himself pinching his sinuses, wondering if he’d finally lost his fucking mind.
The Berkowitz files, concerning the so-called .44 Caliber Killer while the manhunt was on, the Son of Sam after he was caught based on a moniker he gave himself, were massive. The main reason for this was that they contained every false lead and miscue compiled by the department during the year between David Berkowitz’s first murder in July of 1976 and his arrest in August of the following year.
The Berkowitz case had been notoriously difficult to solve even after a massive task force had been assembled to locate the man using a .44 caliber Charter Arms Bulldog revolver to shoot young women. Even more notoriously, the case was solved because of a parking ticket left on the windshield of Berkowitz’s car during the night of the final shooting, though he was initially sought as a potential witness.
There was no question of Berkowitz’s madness. In several letters, he had described himself as “Mr. Monster” and raved about rising from the sewer to “please Sam,” who he described as his father, by committing violent murder. After his arrest, he claimed that the “Sam” was his next-door neighbor in Yonkers, Sam Carr, but that really the one telling him to kill was Sam Carr’s dog, Harvey, a black lab.