The door at the bottom landing was closed. He reached for the handle and pulled. It opened with a sucking sound into a corridor lined with more apartments. To his immediate right was a glass door with an exit sign overhead. He saw a sidewalk through the glass and headlights passing on the street.
He felt a ping of optimism but heard Lewis racing down the stairs. Coburn shouldered open the door and walked into the traffic in his bare feet. A beer truck slammed on its brakes and skidded to avoid him. Coburn spun to look back and saw Lewis burst from the door. Coburn shielded himself from view behind the truck for two seconds, maybe three. Lewis didn’t spot him immediately.
But Smith did. He was seated in the passenger seat of the black Tahoe parked at the curb. Coburn saw him under the map light through the smoked glass. Coburn hesitated for a split-second, then he turned and ran.
23
Coburn glanced out the door, watching for signs of Smith or his men. They had to be nearby. Smith wanted him dead and wouldn’t take the escape lightly.
His feet were bleeding and he needed to do something about it. He found a homeless shelter a block away where he rifled through bins filled with donations until he was clothed in a shirt and shoes that were well worn but fit nicely. A volunteer at the shelter cleaned up the bottoms of his feet and applied ointment and adhesive bandages. The seventy-year-old woman in trifocals worked with tweezers to get most of the glass out.
The shelter was in the basement of a Unitarian Church. He came up a flight of stairs through an L-shaped passage. The shelter smelled of bean soup. Dinner was over and breakfast was probably already on the stove.
Coburn had no money, no ID, no credit cards, and no cell phone. Smith’s people had taken them all. He considered his options. He needed to let Detective O’Shannon know that Ripley was still alive. The detective might not believe him, but maybe Smith and his boys would back off with the cops around. He spotted an open door and found a man seated behind a large desk.
Coburn knocked on the door frame.
The man looked up and smiled.
“Can I help you?”
“Is there a telephone I could use?” Coburn asked.
The man hesitated a moment, then pushed away from the massive desk and stood. He approached Coburn and offered a hand.
“I’m Pastor Kelly.”
“John Coburn.”
“You need to make a call, John?”
Coburn nodded. “A local call. Should only take a minute.”
The pastor was warm and welcoming. He waved a hand.
“Please, use the phone at my desk. Sit down. Take your time. I’ll step out and give you some privacy.”
“That’s very kind.”
“My pleasure.” The pastor’s hospitality seemed genuine.
Pastor Kelly showed him how to choose an open line and dial out.
“Just press nine and dial your number.”
Coburn thanked him and Pastor Kelly gave him privacy as promised.
An operator connected him to the NYPD precinct in Greenwich Village and he asked the desk sergeant to patch him through to O’Shannon. He was informed that O’Shannon was no longer at his desk. It was dark out. The shift had changed. The sergeant at the desk sounded like Tony Soprano.
“O’Shannon’s off duty,” he growled.
“It’s important I talk to him.”
“Sorry, pal.”
“I had his number but I lost my cell.”
“That’s your problem, not mine. He’ll be at his desk first thing in the morning.”
“No good. This won’t wait.”
“I got no time to argue with you pal. O’Shannon went home hours ago. You want, I can pass you off to another detective, but that’s the best you’re gonna get.”
“This is about the murder in Washington Square Park. That’s his case.”
“It’ll wait till morning.”
“No. I have information regarding the lead suspect.”
“Gimme what you got and I’ll pass it along.”
“Call his home number. Tell him Coburn needs to talk. Tell him it’s an emergency.”
“Let me see what I can do.”
Pastor Kelly’s desk was immaculate, the exact opposite work environment from Detective O’Shannon’s desk at the precinct.
Coburn heard the line click and then start ringing again.
A woman’s voice answered. “Weaver.”
“My name is Coburn. I’ve been working with Detective O’Shannon on the Washington Square Park murder.”
“Fabulous. Remind me why I should care.”
“The desk sergeant passed me to you. I need to get O’Shannon on the phone.”
“Yeah? Well, Detective O’Shannon is in bed by now, and I’m not the fool who’s gonna wake him.”
“Give me his number and I’ll be happy to.”
“Nice try.”
In spite of his frustration, Coburn had to smile. He liked her voice. Very sexy. A visual blinked into his mind. Dark hair and brown eyes, with a petite body and a badge clipped to her belt.
“I’m serious.”
“What’s the emergency, Coburn?”
“I know who killed the girl in the park, and he just chased me through half of SoHo.”
“Fine, I’ll send a car to check it out.”
“There’s more to it than that. O’Shannon will understand. Wake him up.”
“Not a chance.”
“Call him.”
“And say what?”
“Tell him that Ripley is alive, and that Coburn can prove it.”
24
O’Shannon and Weaver arrived together. Coburn’s mental image of her was spot-on except that she was much more attractive than the picture in his head. She was taller than he’d expected, and fair-skinned. Her hair was cut straight and tucked behind both ears.
They parked behind a black and white. Two uniforms got out of the patrol car and book-ended the detectives as they angled toward the street corner where Coburn had requested they meet. Coburn stepped out of the shadows and nodded at the cars.
“I’d rather get off the street,” he said.
“This is Weaver,” O’Shannon said.
She put out a hand.
“Talk in the car,” Coburn said.
Coburn had the collar turned up on his shirt and he walked with his head down. He dropped into the back seat of O’Shannon’s brown sedan without another word.
Detective Weaver watched him snap the door shut, then pursed her lips, the only visible sign that she was miffed.
“He’s a real charmer,” she told O’Shannon.
O’Shannon ignored her and labored around the rear end of the car to his door to get in. Weaver rolled her eyes at the two uniformed cops and mouthed the word damn. Both uniforms grinned.
“Why am I not in bed dreaming sweet dreams?” O’Shannon asked Coburn. He overflowed from his bucket seat. The car was not designed for a man of his dimensions, but no car in the history of the automotive industry had ever been. It had to be hell on the suspension.
“Ripley is alive,” Coburn said flatly.
“I’ve heard that song before,” O’Shannon said. “Very recently.”
“I followed one of his people to a warehouse of some kind and they jumped me. Stuck a needle in my arm and knocked me out cold.”
The detective drove with a hand straight up at twelve o’clock on the wheel. The interior was dark except for the instrument cluster.
“How many of them were there?” O’Shannon asked. It was a tone that suggested not so much that he was interested in the answer to the question but that he felt a need to simply ask any question at all.
“Five or six, I think.”
“You were drugged?” asked Weaver.
Coburn nodded. He was seated behind Weaver but leaned to the left so he could see between the headrests and have a visual of the street ahead. He caught a subtle trace of Weaver’s perfume. The streets of Greenwich Village were alive with commerce. They
passed restaurants and Coburn realized he hadn’t eaten since early morning. He was suddenly hungry.
“Where did Ripley take you?”
“An apartment building. Or what used to be an apartment building. The place was abandoned and crumbling. Nothing living there but roaches and ghosts now. I didn’t see much of it but saw enough. The place was falling apart. I woke up in a closet with my hands tied together.”
“Where is the building?” O’Shannon mumbled as if talking to himself.
Coburn leaned forward. The city blurred at night. The sun had gone down and altered the landscape. Coburn remembered running, but his priority had been survival, not mapping the route of escape. In the gloom of evening nothing looked familiar.
“I didn’t exactly leave a trail of breadcrumbs.”
Weaver turned slightly in her seat. “Do you remember any landmarks? Street signs? Anything?”
“I was moving fast, trying to stay alive. And it was dark. I was running blind. So no, I didn’t spend a lot of time looking around or taking notes in my personal journal.”
“How many blocks did you travel on foot?”
“No idea.”
“We’ll drive around a few minutes,” O’Shannon said. “Take a little tour of the neighborhood. Relax your mind. Don’t overthink it. Watch the streets and see if anything looks familiar in any way. The subconscious mind is a powerful tool.”
Coburn had no memory of the exterior of the apartment building. He couldn’t have picked it out in a spread of bright color photos.
There was chatter on the police radio mounted to the dash. O’Shannon’s car reeked of fast food.
“What did Ripley want with you?”
“To kill me.”
O’Shannon’s eyes flashed at him in the rearview mirror.
Coburn added, “For whatever reason, he felt threatened that someone knew his real name. Said it was the same reason he killed the girl.”
“But you escaped.”
Coburn nodded. “I got lucky. They pursued in a black SUV. I’m ninety-nine percent sure it was a Chevy Tahoe.”
He had studied every passing car in traffic. Black SUVs were a dime a dozen in Manhattan.
The sedan turned east through an intersection into Little Italy. They passed an herb shop and something triggered in Coburn’s brain.
“Slow down,” he said.
O’Shannon touched the brake.
“What do you see?”
“Not sure yet.”
Coburn slid across the seat for a better view. A memory was struggling to form.
“Let me out,” Coburn said.
They drove alongside him while he walked.
Weaver buzzed down her window.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
Coburn kept walking. They passed through another intersection and continued on several hundred feet. Then Coburn froze and did an about-face. He started backtracking. O’Shannon dropped the transmission into park and watched him. Coburn stepped out into the street, looking up at the building to his left. It was ten or twelve stories tall, with most of its windows either busted out or boarded up. He continued walking, striding right down the centerline.
O’Shannon put the car in gear and cut the wheel. The sedan made a wide U in the street. He left his foot off the gas and simply let the car roll. Coburn was framed by the headlights.
Then Coburn stopped dead and pointed at a door in the side of the building.
25
The search of the building was hit and miss. Coburn was convinced he had come down four flights of stairs before finding the street. But the fourth floor was largely a demo zone and Coburn quickly dismissed it. They found the room on the fifth.
“This is it,” he said, mostly based on instinct.
The two uniforms went in first, guns drawn. The room was dark. One of the cops shined a heavy Maglite into the dark space. The officer nudged open the door with his foot. The beam of white light played across the dull slab floor. The 60-watt bulb had been shattered. The glass crunched underfoot as they entered. The room echoed with their presence. Coburn shadowed the uniforms while the two detectives watched from the door.
The body was gone.
Coburn pushed past them. He stood in the center of the room and gawked at the bare spot in the room where Davis had fallen dead some sixty minutes earlier. There was no sign of blood, no sign of struggle. The place had been scrubbed. Coburn glanced around. The closet door was closed. Coburn opened it but it was empty. Detective Weaver stood where Coburn had a moment earlier and crossed her arms over her chest.
“They pulled me from this closet, and one of them stayed behind to kill me. I made a move and choked him to death. The body was right there. We were both bleeding. There was blood on the floor. That was less than ninety minutes ago.”
Flashlights moved around the room. O’Shannon never budged. He simply stood outside the open doorway, glazed in perspiration and winded from the grueling journey up five flights of stairs.
Coburn showed them his wrists.
“Look at these marks on my arms,” he said. “Ripley had me tied up.”
“You claim you killed a man?”
Coburn nodded. “Blonde hair. Pony tail. Hooded sweatshirt and jeans. The body was here.”
“Maybe he wasn’t dead.” Weaver said. “Maybe he waited for you to leave, then went down the street for coffee.”
“These guys are good,” Coburn said.
“Why should you be surprised? They are professionals. Ripley managed to cover his tracks and stay dead for fifteen years. I’d say they are proficient in coming in and sterilizing a scene like this. I’m officially impressed.”
Coburn didn’t like the way O’Shannon was looking at him. Or Weaver.
“You think I’m making this up?”
“Didn’t say that.”
“You think I’m crazy?”
“I’m not supposed to make that judgment,” O’Shannon said. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Ripley told me about the avalanche, about faking his death. He told me he killed the girl. Said it was because she heard me say his name. Told me to call him Smith.”
“Smith?”
Coburn nodded. “Yeah. Said it was the perfect name because it’s generic and forgettable. The fact that your database declares him dead makes sense now. That’s what he wants. That was his plan.”
Weaver shifted her weight to her other leg. “Why? What was his plan?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is a big building,” O’Shannon offered, swabbing at his neck with a handkerchief. “Could be the wrong apartment. Maybe even the wrong building, Coburn. It’s dark out there. Easy to get mixed up and turned around.”
Coburn drifted across the room and stood with his back to the plywood that covered the window. He leaned against the plywood, watching the flashlights splash around the room as the uniformed officers roamed in boredom. He sized up the two detectives. They didn’t believe him and he’d given them no solid reason to. He’d produced nothing concrete with which to back up his claims. The database told them Ripley was dead and they seemed very ready and willing to accept that. O’Shannon was a career cop who had seen and heard all there was to see and hear. It would be tough to shock him. Weaver was young but already jaded by the job. Coburn liked her but was painfully aware that he’d made a bad first impression. He needed both detectives on his side, but he would have to produce some solid results if he hoped to win their trust.
“Detective O’Shannon gave me the highlights on the ride over to meet you,” Weaver said. A sheen of sweat was visible on her neck when the light caught her just right.
“And what is your take?”
She shrugged. “A body was found and you claim your friend did it.”
“He was my friend a long, long time ago,” Coburn said.
“Fine. Great. The reality is that your friend appears to be dead. Then you say you saw him a second time, and you bring us here to have a scenic tour
of Hell’s waiting room and seem intent on sticking with your original story in the face of evidence that seems to point to the contrary.”
Coburn moved away from the wall. “Shine your lights right here,” he said, motioning at a six or seven foot diameter of floor around Weaver’s feet.
Both officers focused their beams as directed. Detective Weaver backed out of the way.
Coburn squatted in the middle of the cone of light. He touched the flat of one hand to the cool concrete. There was no trace of blood, and the floor was perfectly dry. But he noticed that there were several broad swaths that seemed not to match the condition of the surrounding floor.
Coburn gestured for Weaver to join him. She frowned, but squatted next to him.
“Check this out,” he said.
Weaver placed her hand flat, fingers splayed like a starfish, her pinky an inch from Coburn’s thumb.
“Now move your hand over there,” he said.
Weaver pushed her hand eighteen inches to the left.
“Notice the difference?” he asked.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Coburn rested his forearms across his thighs.
“This room is covered in dust and grime. Every square inch of it. Where your hand is – right there now – you can feel it. But not right here. Here it’s wiped clean. Nice and smooth and clean. As if someone recently took a rag to it.”
Weaver brushed her hand lightly over both areas again and Coburn saw the difference register subtly in her eyes.
“Well?”
She exhaled and stood, clapping her hands together to brush off the dust and funk.
“I’m not buying,” she said, “but I’ll admit it’s weird.”
“Someone wiped it clean because it was blood,” Coburn said.
26
Coburn had been asked to sit alone in the back of the sedan with the engine running and the A/C blasting while they stepped outside and spoke privately near the front of the car. O’Shannon had switched off the headlights so they were merely silhouetted against the night. He had no real notion of what they might have decided about him. He had simply sat and waited with his arms at his sides. After ten minutes they had invited him for coffee.
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