Stormy Weather (Storm Donovan Book 1)

by Steve Rollins

  He had learned to play violin and piano when he was young, and he was still fond of playing, but right now he had another fancy. And he made enough money with his firm to indulge his fancies. There were a few amplifiers which he switched on and then he grabbed the electric guitar from its stand. He had had it specially built by a guild craftsman in the UK and it was more expensive than the piano, but it sounded better than any instrument he had ever heard. He took up a pick and strummed a chord. He grinned, thinking of the rock star dream he had when he was a boy and then began picking the strings.

  Not too long after he had begun playing, Donovan realized the tune he was playing was quite melancholy. He stopped picking the strings and put the guitar down. He looked at the grandfather clock and decided it was late enough. He turned the amplifiers off and walked back through the library. In the hallway, he made for the grand oaken staircase. It was the sort of thing you could see a woman in a ball gown walking down without too much imagining. At the top of the stairs were a number of rooms, including another sitting room and his breakfast room. There were several suites, all in the same classic style, including his own bedroom. But he ignored that bedroom and took another flight of stairs to the third floor, and there, below the ceiling, was the room he would use tonight.

  This was his second master suite. Unlike the classical rooms on the floor below, this suite and the others on this floor were very modern. There was a flat screen on one of the dressers; the bed was large and luxurious, covered in black satin sheets. A door, in the wall behind the bed, led to a large en suite. Donovan stripped off his shirt and dropped his trousers as he walked through the room to his personal bathroom. He turned the shower on, waited a moment for the water to warm and got under it. He just washed with water, knowing the overuse of soap would dry out his skin. He was a vain man, something he was keenly aware of, but he had his limits. Smearing his skin with products to counter the effects of other products just seemed stupid to him.

  He took a few minutes to wash, then stepped out and dried himself. Naked, he got between the satin sheets of the large bed. And even though he had plenty to ponder, he drifted into sleep very quickly.

  In the morning he woke from the sound of his butler knocking on the door. “Sir, it is time to get up,” the butler's Oxford accented voice said. “Your breakfast will be ready in half an hour.”

  Donovan rubbed his eyes and rose in the bed. He slowly swung his legs out of the bed and got to his feet. Bleary-eyed, he stumbled into his en suite and turned the faucet on. He placed his head under the cold water and suddenly felt himself wake up. He dried his short brown hair and wrapped the towel around his waist. He headed downstairs to his other suite, next to which was his private dressing room. He picked out a pinstripe shirt with a classic white collar, a pair of suit pants and suede loafers; he got dressed. To finish his look, he added a tie. Looking through his tie rack, he picked a simple one which complemented the colors in his shirt; he expertly tied a perfect Windsor knot.

  His breakfast was already waiting for him in the breakfast room. His butler stood by the door with that day's copy of the New York Times in hand.

  “Thank you, Johnson,” he said as he took the paper and sat down. His breakfast today was a selection of fresh fruit, muesli and Greek yogurt. It was the breakfast he ate most often. He liked fresh fruit from warm climates, even in the stubborn winters of New York, where snowstorms would prevent deliveries from getting to the city. He liked pancakes and a full English platter too, but on most days it was just too heavy for the strains and stresses he was expected to deal with throughout the day.

  There was nothing interesting in the paper, he decided fairly quickly, and he handed the paper back to Johnson. He was mighty pleased with his decision to hire the butler. It suited him and his lifestyle to have a butler in the first place, but he had always been hesitant to hire too many servants. He liked the good life and could afford it, but he did not want to appear like the rest of the elite that chose to live in the thick of it in Manhattan’s Upper East Side: pretentious. Of all the people in the part of town he lived in, he was one of the very few who actually had the breeding as well as the riches. As a result, he remembered that he could not, nor wanted to, display his wealth too much. He just showed it enough to make everyone aware of it. That was the reason he only had four people working for him in the loft. There was his butler, Johnson; Miss Graeme, the housekeeper; Juan, the janitor; and his cook, Emily Harkness. In his eyes, the latter was the most indispensable.

  After his breakfast, he went to brush his teeth and then he gathered his briefcase and went out. He walked to the eastern wing of his 3,800 square foot home and went down a flight of stairs. At the bottom of those stairs was his underground garage. He jumped into his favorite car, a British racing green Jaguar E-type. He turned the key and the engine coughed. He turned it again and this time the engine roared into life. He pulled up the key app again and opened the garage door. Moments later, he blasted out into the street. He laughed. There was nothing like the joy of driving a car like this.

  Forty minutes later, he pulled up in the garage of his office building in Midtown East Manhattan. He took the stairs up to his office at the top of the building. Most people would take the elevator, but he liked walking the stairs. He had long decided he felt better starting his day in the office by walking all those floors up than by taking the lift. Only when he was running late did he use the elevator now. It took him ten more minutes to reach his office.

  On the floor his law firm occupied, his office was at the end of the building. From the stair and lift lobby, there was the kitchen on the left and the rest of the office on the right. His partners all had their offices along the main passageway, as did their assistants and their support staff. Then there was a library, completely dedicated to the law. It contained row upon row of almanacs and law books. Most of the changes in the law and the consequences of the decisions of judges were now conveyed digitally, but Donovan liked having the books as well. He figured nobody could mess with them once they were printed. Besides, they looked good. Then, next to the library was his office. It was neighbored by his secretary, his assistant and by his private gym, complete bathroom suite and small walk-in closet.

  Donovan swung into his secretary's office and bid her good morning before cheerfully taking himself to his own office. He opened his laptop and began looking through his emails. It was a chore he hated to do, but a necessary one. The first thing he looked through was the updates from the courts, the updates from the New York Assembly, Senate and Governor, and finally the Congress and White House updates. The next thing was the emails from his clients and business partners. One of them took his particular attention. It was from the Greek shipping magnate who had recently taken a controlling stake in American Stevedoring Inc.

  Donovan had never specialized in any particular field, but of course he employed specialists in his firm. He liked being a jack-of-all-trades attorney. It meant he could take cases and clients of all sorts and deal with quandaries like the one Gregoris Sedakis posed him now. He pondered it for a moment. His firm had represented Sedakis in New York since his company’s takeover; it was a prestigious contract. But the question was a strange one. He was not sure he wanted to be associated with it.

  Another email was from the agent of a young Canadian singer who had just been arrested for drinking under the influence. The girl had been arrested for it before and this time, she had been charged with disturbance of the peace as well. Her neighbors in the prestigious Williamsburg area had finally had enough of her spoiled and extravagant behavior.

  He pressed the button of the intercom and let it go immediately. It would be sign enough for his secretary to know she was needed.

  It took a while for his secretary to show up, but eventually he saw her appear from the other side of the office, walk to her desk, notice the blinking light and come over to his office. She was holding an envelope. “Yes, Mister Donovan?”

  “Can you set up me
etings with Sedakis and the agent of Justine Lavoie? Seems she's in trouble again.”

  “Yes, I heard about it this morning on the radio.”

  Donovan nodded. He did not really listen to the gossipy news on the radio or television and was frankly not interested in it either. He knew a lot of the people that were commonly discussed personally. He preferred to get the stories from the source.

  “Will that be all?”

  “For now, yeah. Thank you, Rachel.”

  The secretary walked up to his desk and handed him the envelope. “This just arrived for you. And your friend Albert called.”

  “Ah, thank you, Rachel.” He grabbed the envelope and reached for his phone. He put a Bluetooth headset on and selected Albert's number on his screen.

  “Agent Wylders.” Albert's voice boomed in his ear.

  “Fuck, why are you shouting?”

  “Sorry, hold on.” The line went silent for a moment, then Albert was back, speaking normally. “Fucking dead guy in the harbor. Engines and shit.”

  “Right. You called earlier?”

  “Yeah, I found the file on your brothers.”

  “Yeah?” Donovan asked, picking up a letter opener and ripping through the sealed edge of the envelope. “Anything interesting?”

  “Bad news. Denny Lang is AWOL.”

  Donovan pulled the letter from the envelope and folded it open. “And Quinn?”

  “Released on parole earlier this week. Just a minute...” Donovan heard Albert speaking to someone in the background. “Donovan...” Albert came back. Donovan did not answer. The letter was written in what was obviously blood. It had run slightly from the letters.

  “Donovan. The dead guy in the harbor. It's Denny Lang.”

  “You took years off my life. I will take the rest of your life. Lang,” the letter read.

  Chapter Three

  “Rache,” Donovan was pulling his jacket back on as he pushed his head through his secretary's office door. “I'm going on the road, first to see Albert; I'll see Sedakis this afternoon and will head down to deal with this Justine Lavoie thing when I'm done with Albert.”

  “Yes, Mister Donovan,” she chirped. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mister Donovan?”

  Donovan shook his head. “Just tell everyone I'm busy all day.”

  He took the elevator down and walked straight to his Jag. He fired the engine up and raced out of the parking garage. He turned onto the I278 that led to the harbor and immediately had to hit the brakes. The traffic was a nightmare, as usual. He tapped the steering wheel with his fingers. He was impatient. The letter was burning a hole in the inner pocket of his jacket. He took it out and looked at the lettering again. He could not see any fingerprints, but it was definitely blood. Someone had taken a calligraphy pen, dipped it in blood and written the note. That would explain the dripping as well. It was probably not held straight. He noticed now, staring at the letter in the middle of the traffic, that the hand was very fine. It was a very nicely written hand. Not many people had good handwriting these days, he thought. A pity penmanship was not really taught in school anymore. He shook the thought out of his head and pressed the gas pedal down. Seconds later he hit the brakes as the car in front of him stopped.

  It took him an hour to make his way to the harbor, but then he raced through the remainder of the traffic to finally pull up by the side of a warehouse where an ambulance and several police cars stood. He saw the SUV with the inverted flowerpot and figured that must be Albert's car. He jumped out of the open top E-type and walked to the door of the warehouse. An FBI tape was tied across the door opening. He looked in and ducked under the tape. “Albert!”

  A woman with a long wavy pony tail and an FBI jacket rushed toward him and had already begun pushing him back behind the tape when Albert showed up. “What are you doing here?” he asked him gruffly. As an answer, Donovan pulled the letter from his pocket and held it out for Albert behind the wavy-haired agent's back. Albert grasped it and took the letter out of the envelope. He took a single look at it and he laid a hand on the woman's shoulder. “It's alright, he can come in here. He's a former agent as well, so he knows the rules.”

  The agent stopped pushing Donovan back and stepped out of his way. Donovan straightened his suit jacket and gave the woman a wink. Then he followed Albert, who was already walking to the back of the warehouse.

  Donovan had seen his share of horror in the FBI, but he was shocked by what he saw. Something that had clearly been a man lay close to the wall in a puddle of blood. The coroner and his assistant were still taking pictures. “Dear God...” Donovan muttered when he came closer. “What the hell have they done?”

  The coroner looked at him and shook his head. “Back with us, Donovan?” He looked at the screen of his camera again. “I really have seen it all now.”

  Albert came to stand next to Donovan. “Messy, eh?”

  “What the fuck is this?” Donovan still watched the horror scene in complete amazement.

  “I believe they call this a Blood Eagle,” the coroner said casually. “Viking execution. They cut through the skin at his back, broke his ribs, spread them out and pulled out the lungs to lay across the broken ribs so it looks like wings. They then left the victim to die like that.” The man shook his head. “I hope to find they did this post-mortem. I don't even want to try and imagine the pain he must have gone through otherwise.”

  “The murderer must have been filled with rage to do this,” Albert remarked.

  The coroner looked at him. “You'd think that, but this is a very calculated and detailed way to kill. Even if done after death, it might have required a lot of hate, but not anger. You have to be in control to do something like this.”

  Donovan suddenly felt sick and swiftly ran to the door of the warehouse. The back door opened out on the dock and he breathed deep the smell of the sea and of dirty ship fuel. “Dear God...” he said again, trying to stop himself from throwing up. He was used to some things, but this just made him sick.

  Albert came to stand next to him. “Like something out of one of your gangster stories.”

  “You're sure it's Denny Lang?” Donovan asked his friend as he laid his hands on his neck, pulling his collar open so he could draw deep breaths.

  “Yeah. He matches the pictures and we found his ID in his pocket. Checked the fingerprints, but they're not on record, meaning it isn't Quinn.”

  “Good.”

  “Give your letter to the good old Doc as evidence. He can analyze the blood. If it's the same, well…” Albert shrugged and nodded to the car. “Got your file over in the car. Oh, and anyone else touch the letter?”

  “Envelope will be useless. My secretary and the mailman touched it. Everyone in the post office probably. I alone touched the letter.” Donovan was still shaking and trying to breathe away his nausea. “Fucking hell...” he swore.

  “Yeah, it’s brutal.”

  They walked around the warehouse, rather than back through the crime scene and finally Donovan's nausea went away as Albert pulled open the door of the car. He reached into the glove box and pulled out a plastic folder. “Quinn Lang. Printed it out for you this morning.” He looked around for a moment and then added, “I didn't give this to you, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Donovan did not look into the folder and he just walked back to his Jag, not saying goodbye to his former partner. Albert didn’t mind, he himself was distracted by the corpse in the warehouse.

  The Jag's engine flared into life and Donovan drove off carefully. He turned back onto the main road and the E-type carried him back into the city. As he drove on the road back to the office, he realized the traffic was better and that he was supposed to do something else.

  He turned off toward the north and headed back to the city through Brooklyn Heights. His own house stood close to the Manhattan Bridge, but in the quieter area; he preferred his home to be quiet. He drove past his exit. He was heading toward the celebrity-dense area of W
illiamsburg, which sat under the Williamsburg Bridge, but was quite different from what he had a taste for these days.

  He drove past the Red Hook container port, a reminder that he was on the clock; the expanse of the container yard felt like at least a mile, but it wasn’t. He saw his exit come up and turned off into Williamsburg. He kept right and found himself in another world in less than 20 minutes; streets undergoing construction that would modernize and gentrify the old Brooklyn buildings. A left brought him into a narrow street not made for cars; at the end was his destination.

  He got out of his Jag and found, finally, that his shock had gone. He felt like himself again and was able to put the horror of the morning out of his head. He walked past a white Audi RS6 he had parked behind. He admired it for a second. It was a good car and quite understated. He nodded approvingly and kept his eyes on it as he pushed the intercom button that was practically in the street. There were four buzzers labeled ‘Longy’ that covered the four penthouse apartments on the top two floors. They were converted specially for the ten-year lease the current occupant had signed last fall.

  A few moments later he heard music blaring through the intercom and a girl's voice. “Yo.” There was a very light hint of a French accent in the voice.

  “Miss Lavoie? It's Storm Donovan. Can you let me in?”

  “Who?”

  “Storm Donovan. Your attorney?”

  “Sure, sure babe, I'll let you in. You can come and help out the boys.”

  Donovan shook his head and pulled the common entrance door to the apartment building as the buzzer sounded to release the remote door lock. He went through and walked the eight flights of steps to Miss Lavoie’s front door. The door was open and loud music boomed out from the whole apartment. He entered the house and immediately wished he had not. There was evidence of an indulgent high life everywhere, even in the passage. It started with discarded clothes and a razor blade that lay on the mirror on the hall dresser. As he went further into the house, looking for his client, he found more unsettling objects. Male clothes as well now, several pairs of pants, a half-smoked joint, a red-stained cork, used condoms and an empty bottle of wine. He just followed the trail of debris up the stairs to find the source; he found the music and a lot of noise coming from a sitting room on the first floor.