by Oliver Stark
‘If we get something from ViCAP or Forest Park, it’s going to be easier to give Leo Lukanov a hard time,’ said Harper.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Forest Park, Brooklyn
March 9, 10.10 p.m.
They stood at the end of Park Lane South and looked across the street to Forest Park.
‘Do you have any idea what the connection might be?’ said Harper.
‘At the moment, the only connection with Abby is circumstantial,’ Denise told him. ‘These Nazis seem to have chanced across Abby and hassled her. She complained and then the graffiti appeared and they showed up near her home. I don’t know how it links with Capske or even if it does.’
‘No, the only connection is that Leo Lukanov was involved in both, and both victims were Jewish. The MO is very different,’ said Harper.
‘We don’t know that. Abby might have been murdered in the same way.’
‘True, but there’s no evidence that either the disappearance of Abby or the murder of Capske was because they were Jewish.’
‘No, there’s no evidence yet, but that’s what we’re here for.’
‘So talk me through it,’ said Harper.
‘Abby crosses the road here. She was nearly knocked down by a delivery truck. The drivers came forward. They say she gave them the finger.’
‘Spirited girl.’
‘Yeah, she actually is pretty tough. A Black Belt in karate too.’
‘What happened next?’
Denise led them across the street. ‘She was heading this way and then she disappeared. A dog walker found her clothes and books carefully stowed in a tree in the woods.’
‘You said it was raining that night?’
‘Yeah, but not when she left.’
‘So let’s imagine she’s off to meet some secret boyfriend. She fakes a study session with a friend, hides a short skirt under her top. She takes off, changes in the woods and heads up to Myrtle Avenue. From Myrtle she takes the bus to wherever she’s going. So far, it’s pretty normal for a sixteen year old, right?’
‘Yeah, except she doesn’t get to the bus stop. None of the drivers remember her and she’s a pretty striking girl.’
‘So she didn’t make it to the bus,’ said Harper. He pointed. ‘Whatever happened to Abby probably started in those woods. Have they been searched?’
‘There was a community search. Mainly friends, family and volunteers.’
‘They would’ve been looking for a body, not evidence of what happened. Let’s take a look.’
‘Any evidence would’ve been washed away by now, wouldn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily. We don’t know what we’re looking for yet.’
Harper and Levene clambered up the small bank into the woods and started to walk.
They walked up the whole path and back, then through four other routes. The site of the hollow tree where Abby had left her books and clothes indicated the main path she’d taken between Park Avenue South and Myrtle. It would’ve been very dark under the canopy that night.
‘Let’s suppose she ran off the path. Where would she go?’ said Harper.
They tried several different routes off the path but didn’t find anything. Then they traveled back up to Myrtle. Harper started walking in and out of the trees, trying to imagine where he would hide if he was an attacker. He stopped at one tree that gave him cover from both the road and the path. It also gave a perfect sightline. He smoothed his hand over the bark.
‘What’s this?’ Harper said, staring at the tree trunk. Denise moved over and looked at the carving. ‘88,’ said Harper. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Denise.
‘I’m going to get Crime Scene to look at this. Someone needs to check the Capske crime scene again. Maybe this killer likes to leave a signature.’
‘If it’s his.’
‘So, look, if it is his, then he’s waiting here, right by Myrtle Avenue. You know why?’
‘No.’
‘Come on, Denise. Why doesn’t he go deeper into the woods?’
‘He needs to be near his vehicle.’
‘That’s right. There was no body found in the woods, so dead or alive, he took the body someplace else. But there’s no sign of a struggle. Let’s imagine he meets her right here. Let’s imagine she manages to escape. Where does she go? Let’s play it out.’
‘Just like old times,’ said Denise.
‘Go and get ready. You play Abby.’
Denise walked down the path and turned. She walked back towards the tree. As she approached, Harper jumped out. ‘Now, let’s imagine I’m right-handed, so this arm comes out here and grabs you. What do you do?’
‘I pull away.’
She pulled away and broke his grip. Her body flew off to the left.
‘Okay, where now?’
Denise looked. She only had two options. ‘I wouldn’t take the path. He’d catch me. If I’m familiar with these woods, I’d chance this overgrown path.’
They both looked into the path. Harper walked slowly along it. ‘It gets thick here. Look, broken thorns and twigs. Not too fresh.’
Denise peered around. ‘She could’ve come this way.’
They followed the half-track. It opened out at one point. Harper pointed to the ground. ‘Look at that root. In the dark, would you see it?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Denise.
Harper knelt. ‘She may have stumbled. Then what?’ He looked around, spotted something about three meters away. There was a tiny glint of some unnatural color. He got up, walked towards it and knelt again, taking out a pocket-knife. The object was bright pink. He scraped away enough of the mud with the knife and read the label.
‘Denise, come over. There’s something here.’ Harper pointed at the small pink cylinder. ‘The brand name is Hot and Pink.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a girl-friendly brand of pepper spray — eighteen grams. The safety lid is open. It’s been used.’
‘You think it might be hers?’
Harper stood up. ‘I don’t know if your guy, Dr Goldenberg, knew whether she carried pepper spray?’
‘She did. Pepper spray and a rape alarm. He made her.’
‘I’ll call CSU — this might be a crime scene. You call Dr Goldenberg, see if Abby used Hot and Pink.’
‘How long before you can get a print?’ asked Denise.
‘If there’s one on there, we could have this case opened in under an hour.’ Harper walked Denise away from the scene. ‘Keep off the evidence. How long has she been missing?’
‘Nine or ten days.’
‘For nine days whoever took her has been getting his kicks, thinking that this girl is never going to be looked for. He’s probably feeling good about himself. This is going to change things for him. Suddenly, the game shifts. We’re hunting a potential killer here. If he hasn’t contacted the family, this doesn’t look good for Abby.’
‘What odds do you give her?’
‘Someone took her with minimum hassle. He either killed her after he raped her and put her body somewhere safe, or he’s got her somewhere.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do we do now?’
‘Shake the tree, Denise. Shake the tree. Make him do something. If he’s listening and if she’s out there, let’s tell the media that it’s a murder enquiry and see if he wants to change our minds about that.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Forest Park, Brooklyn
March 9, 3.06 p.m.
Aaron Goldenberg opened the door. His eyes were already red. He saw Tom Harper behind Denise Levene. He was just the kind of big, brutal cop that he’d expected. Since Abby had disappeared, Aaron Goldenberg had imagined the moment he was told about her death.
In fact, he rehearsed it every day. He imagined that it was about to happen every time the mailman called, every time the paperboy came by, every time visitors rang the bell; and every tim
e the phone went, he waited for the news that would tear him to pieces. He knew that he would never get up again after he heard; that his body would sink and die. As it should. He’d make it his duty never to allow himself to get up again.
He heard Denise Levene say something. He tried to listen. She repeated it.
‘Sit down, please, Aaron,’ she said.
‘Please tell me. If you have bad news, please be quick.’ Aaron stared up at Denise, imploring her, desperate with fear.
‘I need you to keep calm, Aaron.’ She leaned in and took his arm, sitting with him on the couch. He glanced across to Harper.
‘Is he the one? You’re only a psychologist. It has to be a cop to give the bad news, right?’
‘This is Tom Harper. I told you about him. He’s a very good cop. The best. He said he’d help.’
‘Thank you, Detective Harper. Thank you for helping.’
Harper nodded and stayed quiet.
‘Aaron. You told me when we first met that you made Abby carry pepper spray and a rape alarm,’ Denise said.
‘Yes, for her protection. What else can a father do?’
‘Do you remember the brand of pepper spray?’
‘Brand? No. It was pink. I bought her pink. I thought she would be more likely to carry it.’
‘Detective Harper here thought Abby might have cut through the woods to get to the bus stop.’
‘Why would she try to get to the bus stop?’
‘I’m not saying she was trying to run away, sir, only that she was going somewhere she didn’t want you to know about.’
‘I see.’ Aaron lowered his head.
Denise took his hand. ‘We searched the path. We found a discarded canister of pepper spray. Pink.’
Aaron’s eyes glanced rapidly between the two cops, trying desperately to make sense. He couldn’t. ‘What does it mean? She is dead?’
Harper stepped forward. ‘Sir, we got a clean thumbprint off the lid of the spray. It matches Abby’s.’
The man’s eyes seemed wild with pain and anguish. ‘Is she dead?’
Denise shook her head. ‘We don’t know. But it means that it’s unlikely that she ran away. It looks like she was heading through the woods and somebody came across her.’
‘Was the spray used?’
‘Yes. The whole canister.’
‘She’s a fighter, Abby. She wouldn’t just let someone take her. She would fight.’
Denise and Tom Harper stared on, unable to speak or help the man.
‘We’ve got the woods closed off now. We’re doing a full search,’ said Harper.
Aaron’s lips stared to tremble as dark thoughts clawed through his mind.
‘It doesn’t mean she’s dead, sir.’
‘No? What does it mean?’
‘Keep hoping, Aaron. There’s no saying what will happen,’ said Denise.
Harper pulled out his sketchbook. ‘We found these symbols on a tree near to the entrance to the park. They mean anything to you?’
Aaron took the sketchbook. ‘It’s used by neo-Nazis,’ he said.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m Jewish, I was brought up in Brooklyn. I’m a Holocaust specialist. Nazi graffiti is a perennial flower.’
‘So what does it mean?’
‘Eighth letter of the alphabet.’
‘H?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So what does H mean?’
‘It’s double H, as in HH. Which stands for Heil Hitler.’
Harper drew breath. ‘It’s unbelievable. Do they not know what the Nazis did? What they stood for?’
‘I doubt it. Or they find it powerful because they feel weak. Evil has that capacity to captivate those who feel hard done by in life.’
‘Could this symbol be traced to anyone?’
‘No,’ said Aaron. ‘It is too common.’ He watched Harper closely. He felt there was something more. He stood up.
‘What is it, Detective? You want to say something.’
‘I want to go public with your daughter’s disappearance. I want to call it a homicide.’
‘But you don’t know that she’s dead!’
‘You have to trust me, Dr Goldenberg. My feeling is that it plays into his or their hands to have Abby labeled a runaway. That way, the cops don’t make these links. If we call it a homicide, he just might have to prove she’s alive.’
‘If she is alive,’ said Aaron.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
North Manhattan Homicide
March 9, 4.49 p.m.
Lafayette sat on the desk. ‘Where you been, Harper?’
‘Collecting symbols.’ He threw down two photographs. ‘We found these 88 symbols at the woods where Abby Goldenberg was taken. So I went back to the Capske crime scene — and guess what? He left an 88 on the corner of the alleyway.’
‘Might not be him.’
‘No, but it’s another link, Captain, between Capske and Abby. We could have a Nazi killer on our hands. An 88 Killer.’
‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’
‘I won’t. How did things go at your meeting with the Feds?’
‘They want us to keep them informed.’
‘So they backed off?’
‘They backed off. Your print and link to Lukanov was enough.’
Harper hit the desk. ‘That’s good. Now I need another favor.’
‘What?’
‘Abby Goldenberg. Can you swing it under our jurisdiction on the evidence of these 88 symbols and the Lukanov link?’
‘I think I can pull it off Missing Persons. They don’t want it, but she’s not necessarily dead, is she?’
‘We’re hunting a killer and she’s linked, let it be enough for now.’
‘Okay, Harper, but keep me right up to speed on this.’
Harper agreed and headed down to the investigation room. He met up with Eddie. ‘What you got, Eddie?’
‘We’ve got nothing,’ said Eddie. ‘We cross-referenced homicides with reported hate crime and Jewish identity and we got nothing. Sorry.’
Harper sighed. ‘You go take a break. I’ll give it a go.’
Eddie pushed back from the desk and swung his legs out. ‘Thanks, I need to eat. You want something?’
‘Yeah, anything you can get.’
Eddie left and Harper sat in his seat and looked at Eddie’s searches. He’d tried everything. There were four murders highlighted. Two more drug shootings involving Caucasian victims, one Brooklyn murder and one Brooklyn mugging-homicide. Harper read the details. The two drug shootings belonged to the Bronx. The two white kids had been dealing under the noses of the suppliers. They were punished.
Harper stood up and walked around the precinct investigation room. The killer had killed before, so what were they missing? Maybe he had killed and taken the bodies like he might have done with Abby.
Harper logged in again. He tried to cross-reference missing Jewish girls with the MO. Harper looked down list after list. He felt the thud each time the unimaginable crimes flickered to life on his screen. Faces of the dead, bodies photographed in harsh light from every angle. No crime scene on TV could ever convey the banality, the lack of humanity. But there was no link.
Harper trawled through, going through month after month, not knowing what he was looking for, feeling like he was struggling through the darkest jungle, with predators all around. People shot, stabbed, battered, crushed, raped, torn, slashed. Words mingled in Harper’s mind with the images and he had to bat them all aside to keep the emotion away.
A thought hit him as he went through each murder. What if it wasn’t an unsolved murder? What if someone had been put away for the murder? Miscarriages of justice weren’t all that rare.
Harper realized that they hadn’t searched solved homicides, only cold cases and open cases. He put in his search parameters. Single gunshot wound, Jewish victim, writing on the body. He was seven victims down the search results, when he stopped.
Her name w
as Esther Haeber. She’d been killed in Brooklyn two months earlier. Esther Haeber, possibly the first victim of the 88 Killer, now resting in the Records Office with someone else paying for the crime. He noted the Investigating Officer and signed off.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
East New York
March 9, 5.06 p.m.
She’d hidden it well from Harper and the team, but the attack in Brownsville had gotten to Denise, no question about it. Her pulse had hit dangerous levels, she had felt the panic drain her legs, but she hadn’t looked away. She had run through Brooklyn on her own towards her own crime scene. She had been terrified as they blocked her in that alley. She hadn’t panicked, though. She’d fought back and held it together. The session with Mac had helped.
She’d been tough on Tom, but she didn’t want to be a victim, not in her personal or professional life. She wanted to say what she thought and avoid getting herself caught out. Hard as it was to say it, part of the reason Abby was attacked was that she made herself an easy target by straying away from other people. Just as she herself had done.
Now she was back, sitting at the front of Mac’s class, listening intently. Mac stood front and center, his fingers jabbing the air.
‘Okay, people, this is for real. You’ve got to know some techniques so that you can go back to living your lives. These techniques are not here to frighten you or make you into some terminator. But they will save your life and they will prevent you from becoming a victim ever again.
‘In every event, the key is to avoid ever getting into a situation when you are in close contact with another predator, but sometimes it happens and someone has got close to you. Now there are two main problems with your behavior — passivity and non-aggression.
‘These are social aspects of your character. They are appropriate when ordering a pizza or waiting in line at the bank. But when someone grabs hold of you, all bets are immediately off. No more social behavior. You got to dig down under that superego and find the id. Inside you is an animal, so find it. Inside you is the will to live at all costs, find it. And I’m going to teach you how.’