by Neal Baer
“Doctor Waters?” came a frantic female voice from the other end of the line that Claire instantly recognized as Rosa’s mother.
“Maria?” Claire said. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” answered Maria, sniffling from crying. “Rosa doesn’t answer her phone and she never called since yesterday morning. She wouldn’t miss saying good night to the niños. . . .” She stopped, and Claire knew Maria feared the same thing she did when she saw Rosa being led away in handcuffs.
“Take a breath, Maria,” Claire urged her patient’s mother.
“Have you heard from her?” Maria asked. “And did you find out where her phone is?”
Claire silently cursed Nick for leaving her with nothing to tell this woman.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could think to say. “But I’ll ask my friend who was going to help me.”
“Please,” Maria begged. “The children miss their mama.”
“I’ll call you back as soon as I know something,” Claire said, and hung up.
She’d already tried Nick’s cell a few times, getting annoyed when he didn’t pick up. Claire didn’t want to pester him, but her need to know drove her to call.
She dialed Nick’s number, and again listened to it ring.
Nick stared at his cell phone, vibrating on his desk, the display announcing it was Claire. Again. He couldn’t blame her; he too was restless and unable to concentrate on his work. He checked his watch. It was almost two o’clock, nearly six hours since his meeting with Wilkes and Savarese. Waiting to hear from them was driving him nuts. He wanted to tell Claire to sit tight, that he was working on finding Rosa. But Wilkes’s order for him not to speak to her forced Nick to let Claire’s call go to voice mail.
What the hell could be taking them so long? Nick wondered. Wilkes had made it clear that he and Tony Savarese would leave headquarters for Staten Island after ten to avoid the morning rush hour. But that was four hours ago, Staten Island was a reverse commute in the morning, the weather was clear, and if traffic was heavy, Wilkes would have made Savarese (who always drove) flip on the lights and siren in Wilkes’s unmarked Ford Crown Vic. They should have been there by noon at the latest.
Aggravated, Nick got up from his desk to stretch, wondering whether Wilkes and Savarese made the trip at all. He glanced at the carpeted, cubicle-filled room, its modern, updated furnishings a step up from the comparative squalor of a police precinct or even a prestigious unit like Major Case, where the furniture still looked like something out of a seventies period movie. Rank did have its privileges in the NYPD, and the recent renovation of the chief’s office was one of those perks.
But Nick still thought of himself as a real cop, and real cops didn’t belong in places like this. Here he was just another suit in just another quiet, sedate, boring office. A real cop’s real office was the street or a busy unit like Major Case. He knew the reason he probably hadn’t heard from Wilkes and Savarese was the job itself. Anything could have come up since this morning—a new case or a break in an old one—to turn them in another direction. Forbidden from calling them, Nick was at Wilkes’s mercy. All he could do was try not to stare at his cell phone. And wait.
He headed over to the coffeemaker, passing his other desk-bound, civilian-clothed detective colleagues. Most were there by choice, hoping an assignment in the chief of detectives’ office would be a path to something better. But Nick knew that for him this was the end of the road. Each day in this place, he felt like a little piece of him died.
I’m just office furniture, he thought. Just like the file cabinets he now walked past.
He knew he was staying for a good cause, to make things easier for the girls and to save for their college educations. But at what cost? Was it worth spending the rest of his working days in this dead-end job?
No.
He poured himself a cup of coffee, headed back to his cubicle, and began to put together a plan for the future. He’d turn in his retirement papers with six months to go, take his remaining vacation time and terminal leave at full pay. He and the girls would be fine on his pension, and he’d help them look for financial aid for college....
The sharp ring of his desk phone shook Nick out of his own head. Wilkes and Savarese knew better than to call him on a department line. And he didn’t need to talk to anyone else.
Looking at the caller ID, he saw it was Patrick Young, the detective sergeant Nick had passed earlier on his way into the office. The desk of the chief’s receptionist and gatekeeper sat no more than twenty yards away from his own. Nick picked up the receiver.
“Yes, Sergeant,” Nick said in a faux-patronizing tone.
“Cut the horseshit,” came Young’s voice, which he could hear faintly even without the phone. “Grab your coat and meet the Big Man on the roof. Forthwith.”
Nick was stunned. The only reason to go to the roof of One PP was to board a police helicopter on the building’s landing pad.
“Where exactly am I going?” Nick asked, picking up his suit jacket.
“How should I know?” Young asked. “Your security clearance is higher than mine.”
Electronic music blasted from speakers above Claire’s head, competing for her attention against the pounding footsteps and rolling conveyor belts of the bank of treadmills. She was running on one of them as fast as she could, at her gym on East Thirty-Third, as if fleeing from her thoughts about Rosa. But the faster she ran, the faster her brain seemed to be sorting through the direst possibilities. Right now she pictured Rosa locked in a windowless room with a mattress on the floor, screaming for help. She blinked the thought out of her head, and all at once she saw Rosa trapped in a dark box—a coffin—gasping for air. But she was still alive. She tried to shake the thought from her head—and it was instantly replaced with a picture of Rosa buried in a shallow grave with dirt being shoveled on top of her. She couldn’t breathe.... She was suffocating.... She needed help....
Claire caught her breath and slowed down. She hadn’t realized how fast she’d been running, as though someone was chasing her. Like she’d been chased in her dream.
She turned off the treadmill and grabbed her gym bag. She reached in and took out her cell phone. The only call was from her father. His voice mail told her he was heading back to Rochester but would see her next week. She dialed Nick again, but his phone went directly to voice mail.
What was going on? Why would Nick have turned off his cell?
It only made Claire more uneasy as she headed into the locker room, hoping a shower would calm her fears.
The engine of the Agusta A119 helicopter was revving up as Nick stepped onto the roof helipad, ignoring the magnificent views of Manhattan in every direction, and battled his way through the wind from the rotors to the chopper’s open rear door. He had no time for sightseeing now. Something was going down and he was being invited to a table he thought he’d never eat at again.
He climbed aboard to find Chief Dolan already strapped in and wearing a headset. “Nicky,” the chief shouted over the din. Nick closed the door, threw on a headset as he sat beside him, and buckled himself in. It was then he noticed Dolan faced straight ahead. He’d never once turned to look at Nick.
“Chief,” Nick replied, covering his nerves and wondering exactly how much trouble he was in. “Mind if I ask where we’re heading?”
“I think you know,” he said, without emotion.
All at once, Nick realized the chief had his number. He assumed Dolan knew everything discussed that morning in Wilkes’s office. And that’s when Nick’s fear for his own hide gave way to excitement. The chief of detectives wouldn’t fly at taxpayer expense to Staten Island or anywhere else in a police helicopter without a good reason. And certainly not with a half-blind detective.
Unless that half-blind detective had struck gold. His presence here had to mean Wilkes and Savarese had found something. Wilkes, who hadn’t gotten where he was without mastering department politics, had done the only thing he knew would save h
is own hide. He’d managed up and called the chief first.
As the chopper lifted off the pad, Nick wasn’t sure if he was brought along for the ride because he was right, or because the chief wanted to bust his balls for breaking their deal. When Nick looked out the chopper’s window, he saw the newly completed Freedom Tower, its exterior shining in the sunlight like a beacon, a symbol of the city’s recovery from the darkest day in its history.
Maybe it was a good omen, he thought. A reprieve, if only temporary, from a fate over which he had zero control. A stay of execution for his career.
Not until they finished the ascent off the roof and swept south-west over the Brooklyn Bridge did the chief utter a word.
“First time?” he asked Nick. Dolan was still staring straight ahead, but his tone wasn’t in any way accusatory. He was almost making small talk.
“In an Agusta, yeah,” answered Nick. “I flew recon in Cobras during Gulf War One.”
“Army?”
“Yes, sir. Special Forces.”
The chief spoke through the headset to the pilot and his observer up front. “Guys, we need some privacy back here.”
“Yessir,” came the voice of the observer, who flipped a switch so he and Nick could talk confidentially.
“We had a deal,” said the chief, his voice lacking any hint of malice or anger. His even tone unnerved Nick even more than if he’d shouted.
“I know, sir,” was all Nick could say.
“You disobeyed direct orders. After I put my neck on the line for you.”
“Yes, sir,” Nick replied, wondering why the chief bothered to spare embarrassing him before the two guys up front if he was about to drop the hammer.
“I should bust you out,” Dolan replied.
To Nick, that would almost have been a relief. “That’s your call, Boss,” he said, bracing for his punishment. “But for whatever it’s worth, I did what I had to.”
The chief stared out the window at Battery Park as the chopper passed over the tip of Lower Manhattan and out over the harbor. The headsets eliminated the need for Nick to read Dolan’s lips, which was a good thing because he couldn’t see them.
“You better be right about this,” said the chief.
“I know,” replied Nick.
He breathed a sigh of relief, entering his small basement apartment. He’d accomplished his mission. Perfectly. Every detail carried out as planned. He felt a serenity he hadn’t felt in a long time, replaying in his head the many moments of his conquest. Savoring them.
He unpacked his knives. He’d dunked them in a bucket of bleach and the stainless steel blades gleamed. They’ll need sharpening, he thought.
Ten minutes later, the chopper touched down in the empty parking lot of a church, just south of the massive wooded area where Rosa’s cell phone was last tracked. Nick saw two men in suits standing beside two unmarked police cars, and he wondered where the rest of the cavalry was, because certainly they’d need more troops for the task ahead. A thorough search of that forest would require plenty of manpower.
They exited the chopper and were warmly greeted by one of the suited men. Lieutenant Mike Fitzsimmons, the commander of the local precinct detective squad, made small talk with the chief while they were escorted to the newer of the two unmarked cars, a dark brown Ford Taurus. Fitzsimmons handed Nick the keys.
“Try not to smack it up too bad,” said Fitzsimmons. “Thing just came from Motor Transport last week.”
“Hey, Nick, why don’t you let me drive,” said Chief Dolan. “I’ve been wanting to try one of these.”
Nick handed Dolan the keys, grateful to his boss for not outing him. In the police department, no cop of Dolan’s exalted rank ever drove—he or she was always driven. But never by a cop who was going blind.
“You know where you’re going, Chief?” Nick heard Fitzsimmons ask Dolan as he buckled himself into the passenger’s seat.
“Yeah. And don’t worry, Mike, this is your turf and I’m not gonna cut you out. Just bear with me.”
The chief raised the window, threw the new car into gear, and steered it out of the parking lot and onto Hylan Boulevard. “Only five people know what this is about,” he said. “You, me, Wilkes, Savarese, and a detective from CSU. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Nick answered, the adrenaline rush confirming his suspicions. That Wilkes had called the Crime Scene Unit meant he and Savarese had found something.
Barely a quarter mile down the road, a radio car sat parked at a corner, its roof lights flashing, its uniformed driver waving the chief to turn right.
They drove in silence down a residential street lined with well-kept blue-collar homes, mostly small Capes, split-levels, and the occasional high ranch, their lawns neatly trimmed. At the end of the street, Nick could see Wilkes’s department-issued Ford and a CSU Sprinter van parked where the woods began.
People who lived closest to the forest were coming out of their houses. In a quiet, safe, suburban neighborhood like this one, the Crime Scene van stood out like a pink elephant, a billboard announcing not just that the cops were here, but that something big was brewing. Nick wondered why the van was parked lengthwise across the asphalt, its left side facing oncoming traffic. As the car came to a stop, the radio car from the corner pulled up behind them and positioned itself a few feet in front of the van. Nick and Dolan got out of the Taurus and the chief walked to the open driver’s side window of the radio car.
“Nobody goes past this car, including you two,” he said to the cops inside. “Any bosses pull up and start giving you shit for not letting them in, I don’t care if it’s the borough commander himself, you tell them they’re to stay out by order of the chief of detectives.”
“Yes, Boss,” Nick heard the cop in the driver’s seat reply to Dolan, who now gestured to Nick. They strode around the CSU van to the side facing the forest where Wilkes, Savarese, and a CSU detective named Terry Aitken waited. Nick knew Aitken, a lean, muscular guy in his early thirties with a blond marine buzz cut. They’d worked together for a short time the previous year and Nick respected him for leaving no stone unturned looking for evidence at a crime scene.
It wasn’t until Nick approached Aitken to shake his hand that he understood why Aitken’s van was parked where it was—to block the neighborhood residents’ view of the yellow crime-scene tape tied around two trees, restricting access to the dirt road that led into the woods.
“You’re a piece of work, Nicky, you know that?” Wilkes said. “Good thing you were right, because if I had to drive all the way out to this shithole for nothing I would’ve kicked your ass myself.”
It was Wilkes’s trademark backhanded compliment, leaving Nick to wonder exactly what he was right about.
“What’d you guys find?” Chief Dolan asked.
“Tire impressions,” Savarese answered, leading the group to the edge of the dirt road. “Gotta be fresh because it rained last night. Left the road nice and muddy.”
Aitken, wearing a blue Crime Scene Unit collared polo shirt, kneeled down beside the tracks. “I took photos of these and ran them through the database,” he said to the chief. “Treads are from Dunlop 235-55 HR 17s.”
“Those tires specific to any particular car?” asked Wilkes.
“Yes, sir,” Aitken answered, standing up and nodding toward the inspector’s unmarked Crown Vic. “It’s the high-performance tire of choice on Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptors.”
Savarese eyed Wilkes’s car. “We had a whole fleet of those, didn’t we?” he asked cryptically. Nick knew he didn’t want to come out and say what they all feared: that a cop had abducted Rosa Sanchez and brought her out here to do god-only-knew what.
Wilkes, however, jumped in. “Every police department in the Tristate has driven these cars since the late nineties. If a cop took Rosa Sanchez, he doesn’t have to be one of ours.”
“Or even a cop at all,” Nick chimed in. “He could be an impersonator. Used police Crown Vics are easy to come by. Our p
erp could’ve bought one almost anywhere.”
“Do we know what happened to this woman?” Chief Dolan asked.
“Yeah,” Wilkes said, gesturing into the woods. “But based on what’s up there, we’re gonna have a helluva time proving it.”
Claire sat on the sofa her patients usually occupied, trying to read a copy of People that someone had left at the gym and she’d somehow accidently put in her bag. But her mind wandered. She looked out her window over the Manhattan cityscape, wondering where Nick was. Had he found Rosa yet?
She forced herself to think of something else, anything to keep from seeing those terrible images of Rosa she’d conjured up before. She started to free-associate, thinking about the stifling heat. Then she thought about the sun, how children always drew it with a smiling face. But she never had. When she was a child her suns were red orange and angry. Now she thought of the sun as a burning ball of fire, sending unbearable heat to the city. What will happen when the sun burns out? she wondered. What will people do? How will the world survive?
The team walked around the trees strung with crime-scene tape and along the side of the road, careful not to disturb the tire tracks or any other potential evidence. They’d gone nearly a hundred yards from the paved street when they came to a small open area, shaded by the canopy of the surrounding tall red maple and oak trees. Aitken motioned for them to stop on a bed of dry leaves that appeared to be untouched since falling the previous autumn.
“This is as far as we should go,” Aitken advised, “until we get a team in here to process all this.”
He gestured to four large, black, metal pots sitting atop a cooking grate held up by large charred logs around its perimeter. A pile of ashes under the grate was what remained of a campfire.
“Looks like someone was doing a little cooking,” Chief Dolan observed.
“And forgot to take his pots home,” Savarese added.