by Ronnie Allen
“Damn it. She’s my third tenant this year.”
“I just wanted to ask you if you saw any man come here tonight.”
“Yeah, a guy. I looked out the window when I heard the bell ring.
“What time was that?”
“You missed him by a half hour. He only stayed a few minutes then jogged down the block.”
“Did you get a look at him?”
“No. The porch light is out.”
Sam grimaced. “Thank you, Mrs. Smith The investigators will let you know when they’re done. We may have to speak with you again.” She turned and ran to the car. The temperature had dropped. She jogged in place until he opened the door. “Come on, Nick, open the door and put the heat on.”
Once comfortable in the back seat, with Frank next to her, she put her hands in her pocket, leaned back, and closed her eyes. Nick busied himself inputting data into the computer that took up the passenger seat while he waited for the heater to warm things up.
Frank snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Oh, no, you don’t, Sam. Not fogging out on me now. You have some things to clear up.”
She grabbed his fingers. “I’m up. What?”
“Okay. First. What made you go to the other side of the bed to the basket?”
“I don’t know. Intuition, maybe.”
“Uh, uh. What kind of intuition?”
“Female, cop. I can’t put my finger on it. Does it matter?”
“Well, you didn’t look confident. Quite doubtful, in fact. Want to tell me about it?”
“Nothing to tell. Just made a good call.”
“You’re in denial,” Frank intonated.
“Of what?”
“All right, We’ll get to that.”
Nick pulled out. “We should be there in about forty-five minutes. Never too late to make an arrest.” His comment went unanswered.
“And just how well do you know this Perry?”
“Now you’re prying.”
The trip to the hospital took less than forty-five. They were outside AriellaRose’s room by midnight. Frank unbolted the door with the key the security guard handed him.
He assessed AriellaRose with his shrink hat in full gear. Does she belong behind bars in an upstate prison for life? With no chance of parole? Or should I incarcerate her in a hospital for the criminally insane?
This decision would weigh on him and he wouldn’t make it lightly.
AriellaRose turned toward the door when she saw the three of them enter. Her left wrist was still handcuffed to the side railing of the bed. “What the fuck do you three want?”
Sam got the honor. “AriellaRose, you are under arrest for orchestrating four murders. That’s for starters.”
“Well, for starters, are you out of your fucking mind? I’ve been here a week. So how could I have done anything?”
“We were at your brownstone. Found out a lot.” Sam read her Miranda rights as AriellaRose looked distant. “Do you understand your rights and responsibilities?”
With her right hand, AriellaRose grabbed an envelope from under her blanket. “Here, read this and shove it up your ass.” She turned toward the window.
Sam opened the unsealed envelope and withdrew a formal sheet of paper. She took it over to the door. “Frank was right, Jaye Manning hired an attorney for her.”
“Okay. we can’t talk to her anymore. Let’s go,” Nick said.
“I just want to tell her about--”
Nick pulled her away. “No. You can’t jeopardize this case.”
Frank rubbed his chin. “I can speak to her. Call her attorney, Stan Hartman. I mean now,” he insisted.
Nick was more forceful than his usual manner. “Frank, who’s side are you on? Prosecution or defense? If it’s ours, he won’ let you talk to her until he has all the documentation. Listen, we’re all tired, out of sorts, and pissed off. I’ll put in a call to him to let him know we made the arrest, but I, for one, need some sleep. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 28
Sam drove down her block at two a.m., cognizant of her surroundings as she always was. Her neighbors cars were parked in their own driveways. She didn’t notice any strange vehicles. A single woman living alone in Brooklyn, no matter how safe the neighborhood presumed to be, had to be careful. She paid attention even before the academy. Now, more so, knowing about all of the hidden crimes that civilians never learned about. She pulled into her driveway, letting the car lights stay on as she peered down the path to her garage. She shut the engine, got out of the car quickly, and walked up the steps to her front door, then punched the code to her security alarm, missing a digit. The red button didn’t turn green. She realized she was a bit jumpy and in desperate need of some sleep tonight. She tried again. It worked.
She entered the foyer and depressed the keys on the inside box. Worked the first time. She blew out a calming breath. Safe and secure in her own home, she checked the drawer on a wall table to the left of the entry. Glock .40 caliber in place. She sprinted up the steps and into her bedroom and checked both night tables on either side of the bed. A Taurus and Smith and Wesson, both loaded, and in place.
After a relaxing shower, she slipped into bed and pulled the floral print comforter up to her neck. Her mind was reeling. To the case, then to Frank, and back to the case again. She needed to find the fifth vic before it was too late. She needed to accomplish something positive. Her first case as a detective and it was going down the tubes, fast.
The murderers kept doing what they did best and no one stopped them.
Who hit Emma Sanders? Is it Adam or Jaye Manning who is the fifth? Where did the other two women go? Crap.
She needed to sleep. She rolled onto her side into the fetal position that always comforted her under stress, but it took her longer than usual to doze off...
***
She was trapped in a cave. In the middle of the dessert. She didn’t know where. All she saw was blood dripping from the holes in the walls around her. Blood red. Drip, drip, drip. The puddles of blood spread all around her feet. She couldn’t move. Her wrists were tied above her head with metal cuffs bolted into the walls of the cave, her feet chained to the floor with metal ankle restraints. Her neck was held still by a tight spiked cuff, also chained to a spike in the wall. Rusty old spikes and chains. That was all she felt against her body. She was cold and clammy. She couldn’t move her head. He had stripped her naked. Her T-shirt and jogging pants lay crumpled in a puddle of blood. Where was her underwear? Why was she thinking of that? Her body had not been harmed. She hardly noticed.
He approached her, laughing. He mumbled words she couldn’t understand. She couldn’t identify him. His face was covered with a red knit ski mask. She scrutinized him, but she could hardly see.
The blood drops from the wall hit her head and rolled into her eyes. She blinked several times to clear her vision. Then she made him out. He wasn’t a huge man, nor small. His body was hairless without any tats. He was naked, too. Then she let her gaze travel down and saw it.
He was missing his genitals. Steven Larcon.
He was trying to tell her something. She couldn’t understand. No. It was more like she wouldn’t let herself understand. She felt as if she had earmuffs on.
From the distance--almost as if in wisps of air, a whirl of air, in gold and silvers--she saw Dara come through to her. She wore her usual sleeveless white flowing gown, with pleats throughout it and a low V neck. Her blonde curls were pulled up, away from her face, held with a barrette at the back of her head. The rest of her waist-length blonde hair cascaded down her back. Dara, her spirit guide, whom she hadn’t learned to trust completely. Her spirit guide whom she had been trying to ignore. Her intuition, that she had been trying to deny.
Dara came up behind Mr. Larcon. He pivoted toward her. Dara spoke to him. He responded. Damn! Why couldn’t she hear their conversation? Mr. Larcon stepped out of the way. Dara waved her hand and the wrist, feet, and neck restraints dissolved. Sam
fell forward into a puddle of blood. She landed in the same position in which runners begin their races, fingers on the ground, knees bent, backside out. She bent her neck up toward Dara and Mr. Larcon. He pointed behind him. What was he pointing to? What was behind him? His past.
He was telling Sam to look into his past.
Sam jolted awake in a cold sweat, rattled from the dream.
Oh my God. Analyze it quick, Sam before you forget.
Dara had sent a clear message. Sam should start trusting her and her own intuition. Steven Larcon had told her to look into his past.
So maybe Adam or Jaye Manning isn’t the fifth target.
***
Sam, Frank, Nick, and Withers entered the War Room, each carrying folders up to their eyeballs in one arm and large coffees in their free hands. It was exactly one week and five murders since she had entered the rank. She didn’t consider that to be a good beginning at all. Folders placed on the table, they all sat in silence.
Sam broke it. “Let’s get started. This will be a long meeting.” She pulled a ponytail scrunchie from her pocket and tied her hair back. “What forensics have come in so far?”
Withers swallowed before he spoke. “They IDd our guy, whose prints were on the baggie. Jesus Parvos.” He turned the file open in the center of the table so they could all see.
“Eww! Tats on his face. Piercings. He shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“Hold on, Wright. Not so easy. He’s wanted by the FBI and DEA. Parvos’s prints were on several of the weapons in the bust of the Philetano car repair shop. Either he’s the supplier or the middleman, but whoever he is, his rap sheet indicated he is armed and extremely dangerous. Already spent a nickel in federal lock-up for trafficking weapons. High-powered ones, too. He’s a boxer with some heavy hitter matches under his belt. Light heavyweight class. Strong and violent. Was in the box several times for a few months each, when he was upstate. Then he was moved to a different facility, each time. All for fights. He busted up some guards pretty bad. And they were armed. Okay, next, the Ruger we found in Miss Sanders’s apartment was the gun used in the Mason killing. Not for Valerie and Mrs. Larcon’s. No prints other than Sanders’s. That was sloppy. Surprised she kept the murder weapon there, unless she planned to use it for the fifth kill, which I’m not agreeing will happen, based on a candle count.”
Sam leaned back in her chair and frowned.
Withers gave her a hesitant stare before he continued. “She did drink the bottle of cough syrup you found. That was good. No other drugs found in her system, so she didn’t have time to take one of those Blue. The count was ninety. Enough for her to share and sell. Crime Scene found four semi-automatic handguns and enough ammo for several kills. Serial numbers were filed down but they were able to retrieve them. Researching the sources now. No revolvers. Two revolvers were used for the Larcon women. AriellaRose’s attorney has denied you any visits, Frank, until he goes through all of the documentations and evidence. That was to be expected. He’ll be meeting with AriellaRose at the hospital today, and don’t you dare step foot into that building today. Take a day off, go to your gym. Got it?”
Frank nodded. “Okay. Anything on the bloodied towels we found in AriellaRose’s basement?”
Withers flipped through a file. “No. No DNA yet. That could take a couple of weeks. The knives, though, matched about a hundred other packaged ones from the extinct Anderson and Sons found at the brownstone in a locked cabinet behind the bar. We might get lucky if any of the paring knives found in the cabinet match Steven Larcon’s cuts. That would mean the rest are trophies, too. Pray for that. It would solidify the case for murder against her. That AriellaRose knew about them. No doubt.”
Frank let out a nasal breath. He seemed to be deep in thought.
“What, Frank?”
“Need to figure out what we want to happen. No one has to be told that this is the work of a deeply disturbed woman. She’s ill physically, as well as mentally. Do we want her incarcerated in a prison for life or is her attorney going to plead insanity? Killers who take trophies, in her case, bloodied knives from kills or cuts, usually have the trauma it represents in their past. That was done to them on some level. Doesn’t have to be physical cuts. AriellaRose isn’t a cutter. Cuts must be a mental symbolism. Someone who cut away at her self-esteem. Someone who cut away a part of her life. Definitely someone in her past triggered this and she was holding onto to it until she was able to carry through, maybe financially, until she could afford to pay the others to help her.”
Sam grasped onto what Frank had just said. “Speaking of her past. Mr. Manning told us she escaped into drugs at fifteen. We thought she may have been raped at fifteen, since she told you, Frank, she started using then. I’d like to look farther into the family’s past, to when the twins were fifteen. Okay. Which folder has the interviews with family? I believe the Allenry-Holmes team was on that. Oh, and, Frank, I got that angry persona out of her when I stressed her. Crazed wouldn’t describe it.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
After shuffling the folders and examining the cover sheets, Nick handed it to her. “Went through this, Sam. Nothing negative found.”
“Not looking for that. Looking for any person who was in their lives ten years ago or thereabouts and was close to AriellaRose. Age fifteen. That’s important. Give me a minute, please.” She ran her fingers down the page, line by line, turning page after page. “Um, this may be something. Mr. Larcon had two brothers. Mitchell, who’s older, told the detectives, and I quote, ‘He’s close with them as far as parties, birthday and Christmas cards, and presents. But they don’t get together and socialize. Not because of time. But because he didn’t like ‘Steven’s ambition and lifestyle.’ But Mitchell said that their younger brother, Timothy, hasn’t spoken to them in over nine years. And when Mitchell asked about the distancing, Timothy never told him why. He gave them the last known address, but it wasn’t good. No Timothy to be found. I think we need to add this Timothy to the list. Based on what Frank said, this could be a buried trauma. What do you think, guys?”
Before they could respond, Lieutenant Rojas opened the door. A well-dressed, suited man, with a long braided ponytail, entered with him. Rojas left and closed the door behind him. Frank smiled from ear to ear and jumped up from his chair. He and the suited man gave each other bear hugs.
“How are you doing, bro?” Frank asked.
“Man oh man, Khaos, didn’t expect to find you here. Thought you’d be in an ER somewhere, patching up people.”
“Used to. Forensics and psychiatry grabbed me by the balls and haven’t let go. Great to see you, bro.” Frank turned toward the group, who sat stunned. “Marcus Willtower. We go back to Special Forces in Iraq.”
“Yeah, this guy, here, patched me up a few times.”
“More than a few. What are you doing here, bro? I saw in the paper you’re DEA now. Come on. Pull over a chair. These are Detectives Nick Valatutti, Dingo Withers, and Samantha Wright.”
Marcus nodded. “DEA, New York City, Tactical Diversion Squad.”
“Yes. I saw it in the paper you made the Leonardo Philetano bust,” Sam said.
“Yes. That’s why I’m here. We’ve got a problem, Detectives. I need you to watch this surveillance video.”
He removed a flash drive from his pocket and put it into the laptop on the desk. Sam depressed a remote and a screen came down a wall. The video played on the screen. Inside, the Philetano repair shop, with cars on lifts lining the back wall, the scene depicted an SUV with an open trunk in the center of the floor. Leonardo placed weapons into it. One semi-automatic and two automatic handguns with boxes of ammo. Around from the side, Jesus Parvos appeared with a semi-automatic rifle across his chest. He looked edgy, eyes darting around. He was big, ominous-looking, with beady eyes, straight posture, and his finger was steady on the trigger. Emma Sanders jumped out of the driver’s seat.
Rachel Hawthorne appeared from the front passenger seat. Meredith
Cummings and AriellaRose got out of the rear seat. Emma handed Leonardo a roll of Ben Franklin’s in exchange for a bag of Blue. Then Leonardo handed a baggie of assorted pills to AriellaRose. She handed him a wad of bills. Their backs blocked the view.
But he sealed the deal with a hug and long kiss to her. AriellaRose backed away, smiling. The four women jumped back into the SUV and exited the garage.
Willtower sat back despondently. “We’ve been watching them over six months. This incident took place four days before we made the arrest. The night before the arrest, DEA agents were undercover as customers at the repair shop. From the reports we read, your murder spree started three days after we took Philetano down. Do any of these weapons match?”
Sam didn’t hesitate to lash out. “And you’re sitting there, telling me you just let this happen?”
“We didn’t see it happen. It was on the tapes we watched. These women were on several tapes. This, by far, was the most merchandise transferred. Had we seen it, the bust would have been made right then. We had so much evidence to sift through, we just got to this one last night.”
“The DEA can spend over sixty grand a month on surveillance and you had nothing in place to watch this in real time? Do you realize how much drugs hit the streets of the five boroughs because the almighty DEA didn’t move faster? You guys wait too damn long! All to nail one person? Five murders, four of innocent people, could have been prevented!” Sam’s voice escalated to a bellow.
Willtower blew and jumped up into Sam’s face. “You yelling at a federal agent, Detective?”
Sam bolted from her seat and stood tall. “You’re damn straight, I am! I’m in charge of this investigation and you’ll address me with respect. I don’t give a crap how far back you go with your bro!”
“Whoa, Sam. Marcus sit down. We’re all stressed. This case has pushed all our buttons.” Frank tapped Sam’s arm. “Come on, Sam, sit down.”
She sat down and stared through Willtower, stone cold. She made the black man turn red. She’d become real good at that lately. “So what are you here to tell us?”