From Potter's Field ks-6

by Patricia Cornwell

  'Did anyone talk to her?' I asked, and the image made me sad.

  'All they recalled was that she was interested in jazz sheet music. My point is, we don't know what Gault's connections to this area are. But they could be more involved than we think.'

  'What we've done,' Lucy said, 'is take away this emergency exit. The police have bolted it shut, and boom.'

  She hit more keys. The symbol was no longer lit up and a message next to it said Disabled.

  'It seems that might be a good location to catch him,' I said. 'Why don't we want him there behind the Cooper Union Building?'

  'Again,' the commander said, 'it's too close to a crowded area, and should Gault duck back into the tunnel, he would be very deep inside it. Literally, in the bowels of the Bowery. A pursuit would be terribly dangerous and we might not catch him. My guess is he knows his way around down there even better than we do.'

  'All right,' I said. 'Then what happens?'

  'What happens is, since he can't use his favorite emergency exit, he has two choices. He can pick another exit that's farther north along the tracks. Or he can continue walking through the tunnels and surface at the Second Avenue platform.'

  'We don't think he'll pick another emergency exit,' Commander Penn said. 'It would place him above ground too long. And with a parade in progress, he's going to know there will be a lot of cops out. So our theory is he will stay in the tunnels for as long as he can.'

  'Right,' Lucy said. 'It's perfect. He knows the station has been temporarily closed. No one's going to see him when he comes up from the tracks. And then he's right there at the pharmacy - practically next door to it. He gets his money and goes back the same way he came.'

  'Maybe he will,' I said. 'And maybe he won't.'

  'He knows about the parade,' Lucy said adamantly. 'He knows the Second Avenue station is closed. He knows the emergency exit he's tampered with has been disabled. He knows everything we want him to know.'

  I looked skeptically at her. 'Please tell me how you can be so sure.'

  'I've worked it so I get a message the minute those files are accessed. I know all of them were and I know when.' Anger flashed in her eyes.

  'Someone else couldn't have?'

  'Not the way I rigged it.'

  'Kay,' Commander Penn said. 'There's another big part of all this. Look over here.' She directed my attention to the closed-circuit TV monitors set up on a long, high table. 'Lucy, show her.'

  Lucy typed, and the televisions came on, each showing a different subway station. I could see people walking past. Umbrellas were closed and tucked under arms, and I recognized shopping bags from Bloomingdale's, Dean amp; DeLuca food market and the Second Avenue Deli.

  'It's stopped raining,' I said.

  'Now watch this,' Lucy said.

  She typed more commands, synchronizing closed-circuit TV with the computerized diagrams. When one was on-screen, so was the other.

  'What I can do,' she explained, 'is act as an air traffic controller, in a sense. If Gault does something unexpected, I will be in constant contact with the cops, the feds, via radio.'

  'For example, if, God forbid, he should break free and head deep into the system, along these tracks here' - Commander Penn pointed to a map on screen - 'then Lucy can apprise police by radio that there is a wooden barricade coming up on the right. Or a platform edge, express train tracks, an emergency exit, a passageway, a signal tower.'

  'This is if he escapes and we must chase him through the hell where he killed Davila,' I said. 'This is if the worst happens.'

  Frances Penn looked at me. 'What is the worst when you're dealing with him?'

  'I pray we have already seen it,' I said.

  'You know that Transit's got a touch screen telephone system.' Lucy showed me. 'If the numbers are in the computer, you can dial anywhere in the world. And what's really cool is 911. If it's dialed above ground, the call goes to NYPD. If it's dialed in the subway, it comes to Transit Police.'

  'When do you close Second Avenue station?' I got up and said to Commander Penn.

  She looked at her watch. 'In a little less than an hour.'

  'Will the trains run?'

  'Of course,' she said, 'but they won't stop there.'

  20

  The March Against Crime began on time with fifteen church groups and a miscellaneous contingent of men, women and children who wanted to take their neighborhoods back. The weather had worsened and snow blew on frigid winds that drove more people into taxis and the subways because it was too cold to walk.

  At two-fifteen, Lucy, Commander Penn and I were in the control room, every monitor, television and radio turned on. Wesley was in one of several Bureau cars that ERF had painted to look like yellow cabs and equipped with radios, scanners, and other surveillance devices. Marino was on the street with Transit cops and plainclothes FBI. HRT was divided among the Dakota, the drugstore and Bleecker Street. We were unclear on the precise location of anyone because no one on the outside was standing still, and we were in here, not moving.

  'Why hasn't anyone called?' Lucy complained.

  'He hasn't been sighted,' said Commander Penn, and she was steady but uptight.

  'I assume the parade has started,' I said.

  Commander Penn said, 'It's on Lafayette, headed this way.'

  She and Lucy were wearing headphones that plugged into the base station on the console. They were on different channels.

  'All right, all right,' Commander Penn said, sitting up straighter. 'We've spotted him. The number seven platform,' she exclaimed to Lucy, whose fingers flew. 'He's just come in from a catwalk. He's entered the system from a tunnel that runs under the park.'

  Then the number seven platform was on black-and-white TV. We watched a figure in a long dark coat. He wore boots, a hat and dark glasses, and stood back from other passengers at the platform's edge. Lucy brought up another subway survey on the screen as Commander Penn stayed on the radio. I watched passengers walking, sitting, reading maps and standing. A train screamed by and got slower as it stopped. Doors opened and he got on.

  'Which way is he bound?' I asked.

  'South. He's coming this way,' Commander Penn said, excited.

  'He's on the A line,' Lucy said, studying her monitors. '

  'Right.' Commander Penn got on the air. 'He can only go as far as Washington Square,' she told someone. Then he can transfer and take the F line straight to Second Avenue.'

  Lucy said, 'We'll check one station after another.

  We don't know where he might get off. But he's got to get off somewhere so he can go back into the tunnels.'

  'He has to do that if he comes in the Second Avenue way,' Commander Penn relayed to the radio. 'He can't take the train in there because it's not stopping there.'

  Lucy manipulated the closed-circuit television monitors. At rapid intervals they showed a different station as a train we could not see headed toward us.

  'He's not at Forty-second,' she said. 'We don't see him at Penn Station or Twenty-third.'

  Monitors blinked on and off, showing platforms and people who did not know they were being watched.

  'If he stayed on that train he should be at Fourteenth Street,' Commander Penn said.

  But if he was, he did not disembark, or at least we did not see him. Then our luck suddenly changed in an unexpected way.

  'My God,' Lucy said. 'He's at Grand Central Station. How the hell did he get there?'

  'He must have turned east before we thought he would and cut through Times Square,' Commander Penn said.

  'But why?' Lucy said. 'That doesn't make sense.'

  Commander Penn radioed unit two, which was Benton Wesley. She asked him if Gault had called the pharmacy yet. She took her headphones off and set the microphone so we could hear what was said.

  'No, there's been no call,' came Wesley's reply.

  'Our monitors have just picked him up at Grand Central,' she explained.

  'What?'

  'I don't know why he's
gone that way. But there are so many alternative routes he could take. He could get off anywhere for any reason.'

  'I'm afraid so,' Wesley said.

  'What about in South Carolina?' Commander Penn then asked.

  'Everything's ten-four. The bird has flown and landed,' Wesley said.

  Mrs. Gault had wired the money, or the Bureau had. We watched while her only son casually rode with other people who did not know he was a monster.

  'Wait a minute,' Commander Penn continued to broadcast information. 'He's at Fourteenth Street and Union Square, going south right at you.'

  It drove me crazy that we could not stop him. We could see him and yet it did no good.

  'It sounds like he's changing trains a lot,' Wesley said.

  Commander Penn said, 'He's 'gone again. The train's left. We've got Astor Place on-screen. That's the last stop unless he goes past us and gets out at the Bowery.'

  The train's stopping,' Lucy announced.

  We watched people in the monitors and did not see Gault.

  'All right, he must be staying on,' Commander Penn said into the microphone.

  'We've lost him,' Lucy said.

  She changed pictures like a frustrated person flipping television channels. We did not see him.

  'Shit,' she muttered.

  'Where could he be?' The commander was baffled. 'He's got to get out somewhere. If he's going into the pharmacy, he can't use the exit at Cooper Union.' She looked at Lucy. 'That's it. Maybe he's going to try. But he won't get out. It's bolted. But he might not know.'

  She said. 'He's got to know. He read the electronic messages we sent.'

  She scanned some more. Still, we did not see him and the radio remained tensely silent.

  'Damn,' Lucy said. 'He should be on the number six line. Let's look at Astor Place and Lafayette again.'

  It did no good.

  We sat without talking for a while, looking at the shut wooden door that led into our empty station. Above us, hundreds of people were walking sodden streets to demonstrate they were fed up with crime. I began looking at a subway map.

  Commander Penn said, 'He should be at Second Avenue now. He should have gotten off at an earlier or later stop and walked the rest of the way through the tunnel.'

  A terrible thought occurred to me. 'He could do the same thing here. We're not as close to the pharmacy, but we're on the number six line too.'

  'Yeah,' Lucy said, turning around to look at me. 'The walk from here to Houston is nothing.'

  'But we're closed,' I said.

  Lucy was typing again.

  I got up out of my chair and looked at Commander Penn. 'We're here alone. It's just the three of us. The trains don't stop here on the weekends. There is no one. Everyone is at Second Avenue and the pharmacy.'

  'Base station to unit two,' Lucy was saying into the radio.

  'Unit two,' Wesley said.

  'Everything ten-four? Because we've lost him.'

  'Stand by.'

  I opened my briefcase and got out my gun. I cocked it and pushed on the safety.

  'What's your ten-twenty?' Commander Penn got on the air to ask for their location.

  'Holding steady at the pharmacy.'

  Screens were flashing by crazily as Lucy tried to locate Gault.

  'Hold on. Hold on,' Wesley's voice came over the air.

  Then we heard Marino. 'It looks like we've got him.'

  'You've got him?' Commander Penn, incredulous, asked the radio. 'What is the location?'

  'He's walking into the pharmacy.' Wesley was back. 'Wait a minute. Wait a minute.'

  There was silence. Then Wesley said, 'He's at the counter getting the money. Stand by.'

  We waited in frantic silence.

  Three minutes passed. Wesley was back on the air. 'He's leaving. We're going to close in once he gets inside the terminal. Stand by.'

  'What's he wearing?' I asked. 'Are we sure it's the person who got on at the museum?'

  Nobody paid me any mind.

  'Oh Christ,' Lucy suddenly exclaimed, and we looked at the monitors.

  We could see the platforms of Second Avenue station, and HRT exploding out of the darkness of the tracks. Dressed in black fatigues and combat boots, they ran across the platform and up steps leading to the street.

  'Something's gone wrong,' Commander Penn said. 'They're grabbing him above ground!'

  Voices ricocheted on the radio.

  'We've got him.'

  'He's trying to run.'

  'Okay, okay, we've got his gun. He's down.'

  'Have you got him cuffed?'

  A siren went off inside the control room. Lights along the ceiling began flashing blood red, and a red code 429 began flashing on a computer screen.

  'Mayday!' Commander Penn exclaimed. 'An officer is down! He's hit the emergency button on his radio!' She stared at the computer screen in stunned disbelief.

  'What's happening?' Lucy demanded into the radio.

  'I don't know,' Wesley's voice crackled. 'Something's wrong. Stand by.'

  'That's not where it is. The Mayday isn't at Second Avenue station,' Commander Penn said, awed. This code on the screen is Davila's.'

  'Davila?' I said numbly. 'Jimmy Davila?'

  'He was unit four twenty-nine. That's his code. It hasn't been reassigned. It's right here.'

  We stared at the screen. The flashing red code was changing locations along a computerized grid. I was shocked no one had thought of it before.

  'Was Davila's radio with him when his body was found?' I asked.

  Commander Penn didn't react.

  'Gault's got it,' I said. 'He's got Davila's radio.'

  Wesley's voice came back, and he could not know of our difficulty. He could not know about the Mayday.

  'We're not sure we have him,' Wesley said. 'We're not sure who we have.'

  Lucy intensely looked over at me. 'Carrie,' she said. 'They're not sure if they have her or Gault. She and Gault are probably dressed alike again.'

  Inside our small control room with no windows and no people nearby, we watched the flashing red Mayday code move along the computer screen, getting closer to where we sat.

  It's in the southbound tunnel heading straight at us,' Commander Penn said with growing urgency.

  'She didn't get the messages we sent.' Lucy had it figured out.

  'She?' Commander Penn asked, looking oddly at her.

  'She doesn't know about the parade or that Second Avenue is closed,' Lucy went on. 'She may have tried the emergency exit in the alleyway and couldn't get out because it's been bolted. So she just stayed under and has been moving around since we sighted her at Grand Central Station.'

  'We didn't see Gault or Carrie on the platforms of the stations closer to us,' I said. 'And you don't know it's her.'

  'There are so many stations,' Commander Penn said. 'Someone could have gotten out and we just didn't see them.'

  'Gault sent her to the pharmacy for him,' I said, more unnerved by the minute. 'He somehow knows every goddam thing we're doing.'

  'CAIN,' Lucy muttered.

  'Yes. That and he's probably been watching.'

  Lucy had our location, the Bleecker Street local stop, on closed-circuit TV. Three of the monitors showed the platform and turnstiles from different angles, but one monitor was dark.

  'Something's blocking one of the cameras,' she said.

  'Was it blocked earlier?' I asked.

  'Not when we first got here,' she said. 'But we haven't been monitoring this station where we are. There didn't seem to be a reason to check here.'

  We watched the red code slowly move across the grid.

  'We've got to stay off the air,' I told Commander Penn. 'He has a radio,' I added, because I knew Gault was the red code on our screen. I had no doubt. 'You know it's on and he's hearing every word we say.'

  'Why's the Mayday light still on?' Lucy asked. 'Does she want us to know where she is?'

  I stared at her. It was as if Lucy were in a trance.


  'The button may have been hit inadvertently,' Commander Penn said. 'If you don't know about the button, you wouldn't realize it's for Maydays. And since it's a silent alarm, you could have it on and not know it.'

  But I did not believe anything happening was inadvertent. Gault was coming to us because this was where he wanted to be. He was a shark swimming through the blackness of the tunnel, and I thought of what Anna had said about his hideous gifts to me.

  'It's almost at the signal tower.' Lucy was pointing at the screen. 'Goddam that's close.'

  We did not know what to do. If we radioed Wesley, Gault would overhear and disappear back through the tunnels. If we did not make contact, the troops would not know what was happening here. Lucy was at the door, and she opened it a little.

  'What are you doing?' I almost screamed at her.

  She quickly shut the door. 'It's the ladies' room. I guess a janitor propped open the door while cleaning and left it that way. The door's blocking the camera,'

  'Did you see anybody out there?' I asked.

  'No,' she said, hatred in her eyes. 'They think they have her. How do they know it's not Gault? It may be her who's got Davila's radio. I know her. She probably knows I'm in here.'

  Commander Penn was tense when she said to me, 'There's some gear in the office.'

  'Yes,' I said.

  We hurried back to a cramped space with a beat-up wooden desk and chair. She opened a cabinet and we grabbed shotguns, boxes of shells, and Kevlar vests. We were gone minutes, and when we returned to the control room Lucy was not there.

  I looked at the closed-circuit TV monitors and saw a picture blink onto the fourth screen as someone shut the ladies' room door. The flashing red code on the survey grid was deeper inside the station now. It was on a catwalk. At any second it would be on the platform. I looked for my Browning pistol, but it was not on the console where I had left it.

  'She took my gun,'1 said in amazement. 'She's gone out there. She's gone after Carrie!'

  We loaded shotguns as fast as we could but did not take the time for vests. My hands were clumsy and cold.

  'You've got to radio Wesley,' I said, frantic. 'You've got to do something to get them here.'

  'You can't go out there alone,' Commander Penn said.