by Ronnie Allen
A tech signaled to them to come into her office. They glanced at her degrees, credentials, and affiliations on the walls.
“We need to take those. John will know if they’re authentic,” Sal said.
“Detectives, over here. We followed the sneaker prints. Same as the hospital and down the stairwell but now with street debris.” A tech stood by the lithograph of Castor and Pollux with the cracked glass on the frame that he had pulled away from the wall. “This was recently opened. We got solid prints.”
“Great. Can you tell how old they are?” Tony asked.
“From the depth and clarity, maybe late last night. And it doesn’t look like anyone touched it since.”
“Okay. She’s getting careless, no gloves. ID them ASAP. Can you open it?” Tony asked.
“This sure can.” The tech attached an electronic safe opening device to the knob on the safe. It turned the dial and beeped, showing the number on a screen. “One...nine... nine...three. 1993. Usually a significant number. The year?”
“We’ll get on it. What’s in there?” Sal inquired.
The tech unlatched the door revealing a box of .38-caliber bullets and the standard black case to a Pink Lady.
Sal handled the case. “Wow. She can’t go back to her apartment, so I guess she keeps a stash here. Get what you can, guys, and tape it up. Want to limit her resources.”
As they walked to their car, Sal figured they’d get some more information. “Let’s go check on Mrs. Bennett. See if Barbara contacted her. She’s five minutes from here.”
***
A ten-year-old Buick was parked in Mrs. Bennett’s driveway. “Maybe she’s home.” They skipped up the steps and rang the bell. No answer. Sal peeked through the bay window on her front porch. The blinds were raised. He compressed his lips and shook his head. “Oh, no. Tony, come here.”
“No. Damn it! No!” Tony ran both hands through his hair and rested them on his head.
They pushed in the open door and entered the house with guns drawn, but deep down inside they knew it was clear. Sal immediately saw Mrs. Bennett. He approached the body with the “silencer” pillow still on her chest. Her eyes stared at the ceiling. She rested flat on her back on the sofa with her right leg outstretched and her left on the couch. Riga mortis had already set in. Sal couldn’t close her eyes. The now-dried blood attached the pillow to her bathrobe. Sal didn’t attempt to remove it. He didn’t bother to check for a pulse. He just froze there with his hand over his mouth, shaking his head in dismay. “Call it in.”
Tony did, as he eyed the shell casings.
Barbara had put three bullets into Mrs. Bennett, leaving the remaining two for another victim.
***
“Why did she have to kill Mrs. Bennett?” John was inconsolable. He paced in Carlson’s office, so agitated he wanted to put his fist through the wall. He kicked a trash pail across the room, sending it into flight like the kicker at the beginning of a football game. He narrowly missed Carlson’s head. On purpose. “That should been your head, you son-of-a-bitch!”
Carlson jumped back. John knew for sure that Carlson was in way over his head, but he also knew that the lieutenant wouldn’t retaliate. Carlson wouldn’t stand a chance against him
John went face to face with him. Tony and Sal seized John and thrust him against the opposite wall. They were equally as strong as him with their pumping adrenalin. “John, John, stop! Get a grip, man. We’ll find her! Stop! Control yourself.”
John struggled to push them away. He drained a lot of strength, coming back at Tony and Sal with his shoulders but no leg Tae Kwon Do moves.
A psychiatrist attacking detectives? That wouldn’t bode well. And he could wind up in jail. He breathed hard and resisted, but the two of them grabbing him by the arms, finally saddled him into a chair.
“Calm down, we have work to do. Case first, emotions later, Okay, buddy?” Sal pushed John’s shoulders steadily down into the chair, looking straight into his crazed eyes. His hair was a mess, wild and all over his face, and he wasn’t ready to focus yet. “Look at me, John! Look at me. Damn it!”
John glanced up and sent Sal a succumbing look. He got it. Sal exhaled hard and released John’s shoulders. John leaned forward with his head in his hands, trying to calm down. He exhaled deeply for a few minutes and then contained himself. Sal handed him a bottle of water, which he accepted. John twisted off the top, threw it onto the floor, and consumed the entire bottle, practically in one gulp, without uttering a word.
“Okay, okay.” John endeavored to get a handle on it. “Okay, so both the clinic and the Manhattan apartments are fronts. The licenses look legit and they probably belong to the real Barbara Montgomery. The real Barbara is in good standing with the APA.”
“That’s right. All of her creds check out,” Sal confirmed.
“Okay, so Barbara became a school psychologist right before Kellie killed her in June 2003. Make sense?” They nodded in agreement. “The perfect identity was already created. Did you find her client list?”
“Get this, John, crime scene found folders with names, addresses, socials, and the amount of money their session cost. But they’re all bogus. Kids do not exist. They never existed. She just fabricated names. These are current and for this year.”
John couldn’t understand such creative bookkeeping. “How did she get away with it? Didn’t she have to be accountable to the Department of Education?”
Sal eyeballed another folder. “No. The Department of Ed didn’t sponsor the grant. It was given through the New York City Chamber for the Commission of Grants, whatever the hell that is.”
“It was an indie non-profit. They’re out of business now, too,” Tony said, impressing them. “Hey, only reading this here. Since she had the psych creds, she used it to work in the school. They pulled the grant from her within the first six months since she didn’t set up seeing clients within the allotted time. As far as that grant commission knows, there is no clinic. That was in 2012. She just failed to tell her donors that. The clinic for the grant was on Ocean Avenue. It is closed. She opened this one on her own two years ago. And there’s no one there for us to follow up with.”
“Mrs. Bennett told me she started with her and went to Connecticut and then California and then came back. Why does she move so often? Did she go around the country doing this?”
“John, our job here is to find her, before she kills again, and figure out why she chose Reynolds. Let’s focus on New York. I’m not bringing in the fucking FEDS for an interstate investigation.” The desk phone rang. “Carlson.”
“Lieutenant Carlson, this is Lieutenant Becker, Manhattan North. We have a bullet match from a shooting late last night off Central Park West and Ninety-Seventh, with ones your team put into the system. We know it’s your active case.”
Carlson put the phone on speaker. “Who?”
“A cabbie. His log showed he picked up at Sheepshead Medical Center and made three stops. The first two in Brooklyn. On Nostrand Avenue, then East Thirty-First, then Manhattan.”
“Thanks. Send me all crime scene photos, exact location, and the cabbie’s logs. We’ll need it for a timeline.”
“Will do, Lieutenant.” The phone disconnected.
“Three fucking kills in one night. Not good. She’s the most out of control psychopath I’ve seen in this borough.”
“Central Park West? That’s where Barbara’s parents lived right?” John connected.
“Yeah. That’s where the accident was. We’ll bring up the case file and get their exact address,” Sal said.
“See who owns the apartment now. Maybe that’s Kellie’s hideaway. I know she must have another Manhattan apartment.”
Jennifer carried in a folder of new information from the clinic. “Thanks Jen.” Carlson opened the file and scanned the first page. He read the report. “‘Prints on the safe do not belong to Dr. Barbara Montgomery. They have her Department of Education prints here, and the ones on the safe.” Carlson showed
them to Sal, Tony, and John.
Tony grabbed the file. “It’s obvious, even with the naked eye, they’re different. Kellie has some scars on a few of her fingers. Either, she cut herself cooking, or got cut during some earlier kills. Barbara’s fingerprints have nothing interfering with the lines and curvatures.”
“Good. Is that the complete Department of Ed file?” John asked.
“Yeah. And something else worth noting. Her payroll checks get direct deposited to an account in Manhattan.”
“What are you getting at, Loo?”
“There’s only one Barbara Montgomery. The original one with the real social security. So the real Barbara can’t be practicing in another state to leave Kellie to be a duplicate here. They would have been found out, if they were working together. Now what are you looking for, John?”
“The medical, for blood type. Kellie is A positive.”
“Hold on, we got everything you wanted.” Tony went through the medical. “Here it is, the real Barbara Montgomery is A positive.”
“Okay we did it. We got the proof.” John blew out a deep breath. “Kellie offed her twin Barbara and assumed her identity twelve years ago.”
CHAPTER 38
John turned his laptop on and, while it booted up, he made a visit to the bathroom. He was an early riser and the heartbreak of learning that Barbara had killed Mrs. Bennett just an hour after her escape left him too depressed for words. A sleepless night didn’t help even though that’s not like him at all. After his long days with his complete devotion to the job and his wife, he was usually asleep before his head hit the pillow.
He heard the Skype bleep of an incoming call, thinking it was Sal or Tony, and he really wasn’t in the mood to talk but he had to. The job. Could never refuse. His contract defined it. Could never refuse. Those words haunted him sometimes, and his parents, always. He dillydallied going into his office but he pressed the Skype call to answer, without looking at the number.
“John! It’s me, Ricky!”
“Ricky!”
“I’m eight now. We’ve been tryin’ to call you all night, well almost all night. Vicki made me go to bed at eleven. You’d probably think that’s too late, knowin’ you.”
John sat there stunned, but immediately his state of mind changed and a big smile crossed his face. “Ricky, how did you--”
“It’s a long story.”
“Your stories were always long, champ. Tell me.”
“It didn’t work out with my aunt an’ uncle that took me to Miami. Well, for a year it did. They didn’t have money to pay the bills for my asthma, so they took me back to social services. But that old lady that was there wasn’t or somethin’ like that. I told ’em I wanted to live with you an’ Vicki, but when they tried to call her the phone was shut off, an’ they couldn’t find her. I still have the picture of you an’ me. I carry it in my pocket every day.”
“So do I, champ. So do I.” Tears welled up inside him. “What happened?”
“I was in different foster homes, I think three, but no one wanted to keep me till I grow up, so they took me back. Everybody said ‘he’s difficult,’ whatever that means. Maybe cause I didn’t wanna to go to school an’ I kept gettin’ thrown out. Every time I asked them to call Vicki, they got no answer ’til a couple days ago. Vicki spoke to some lady an’ said I can come live with you. I got here yesterday. I can, can’t I?”
It immediately came to him and, though thrown off guard, he knew Vicki was coming back to him. And his deepest wish for the past three years had come true. “Yes of course, absolutely you can. Where’s Vicki?”
“She’s packin’. We’re leavin’ for your house this afternoon.”
“Put her on, champ.”
“Vicki, oh my God, Vicki, I’ve missed you so much and it’s been the longest eighteen days of my life. I can’t live without you, babe.”
“Eighteen days, fifteen hours, and thirty three minutes to be exact. I can’t live without you either. John, I can’t believe you were right. You said he’s coming back to us. It’s a miracle.”
“I believe in miracles, Vicki.”
“John, it was meant for me to come back here. Just to get the call from social services. It was a miracle I got my old phone number back.”
“The universe does things in wondrous ways, Vicki.” He gazed at her very much-missed breasts. “You look at little puffy. Are you gaining weight?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you tonight.”
“No, Vicki, no. You can’t come back today.”
“What? John, are you seeing--”
“Vicki, no, babe, there’ll never be anyone else for me, never in a million years.”
Tears flowed. “Then why?”
“I’m working on a very serious murder case.”
“So? You always are,” she said, clearly trying to contain herself.
“This one’s more dangerous. The killer escaped from custody, and there’s a partner, and I don’t want you or Ricky here. I’ll be too pre-occupied with this case to spend time with you.”
“But--That’s BS!”
“No buts, Vicki. We’ll have them in custody by the end of the week and then I’ll come down. I’ll need a vacation after this one. You stay there, tell Mark and Brian we spoke and tell him why you can’t come back now. They’ll understand. Okay? You’ll tell them?”
“Yes, I will, of course. I want to be with you, John.”
“Babe, I want to be with you, too. And we will. Just a few more days.”
“Okay.”
“All right, I have to get to the office. I’ll call you when I can. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
From the distance, John heard Ricky’s voice.
“Don’t hang up!” Ricky raced into view. “John, I forgot to tell you!”
“What, champ?”
“We’re getting a dog!”
“A dog?”
“Yes.”
“And that happened how?”
“Mark told Vicki his friend had puppies. An’ you know how much she misses Duchess.”
“How big of a dog?”
“Well, the dad is a hundred-ten an’ the mom is ninety-seven.”
“What kind of a dog is that?” John freaked out. A dog? Not on his white carpet.
“A German Shepherd. We saw the litter today an’ they are so cute. Nine puppies from a K-9 deputy. We drove an’ drove an’ drove up a dirt road an’ Vicki’s jeep got stuck in the sand an’ they hadda come rescue us an’ pull us outta the dirt cause the wheels spinned an’ it took a long time an’ I need a dog, John.”
“You still talk without taking a breath. Why do you need a dog?”
“It’ll teach me responsibility an’ I swear I’ll walk ’im an’ feed ’im an’ train it. They were all over me, John. Here look.” He held up a pic with him sitting on the dirt road with his legs crossed and a four-week-old, tan and black male pup sat on his lap, licking him to death as his paws rested on Ricky’s shoulders. “The deputy says from the size of his paws he’ll be hundred-ten pounds. An’ we named him Duke.”
“Duke. Solid name. Uh, why don’t we adjust to us being a family first?”
“Vicki wants a dog too an’ she misses Duchess an’ Mark says every kid should have a dog.”
“Remind me to thank him.”
“John, they were precious. You know how much I miss not having a dog. And the night I left, you said we could.”
“I’d love to get a house first with a back yard. We’ll talk about it when I see you two. Okay. Don’t bring the puppy home yet or did you already? Vicki, you are so quick--”
“No. We can’t take ’im home for five more weeks cause the deputy won’t let ’im be adopted till they are nine weeks old an’ he’ll have some of his shots an’ I dunno if I can wait five weeks.”
“We’ll talk about it when I see you. In a few days. Babe, I have to go.”
The Skype disconnected.
Yeah right. A dog. Just what I n
eed. In five weeks they’ll be back in New York and he’ll forget about it. All right. No stress.
***
It was a cold February Sunday morning but that didn’t prevent Morgan from working. Owning the company the past three months had made him grow up. He acknowledged the potential in his self-worth and, after seeking coaching from world-renowned leaders, the possibilities were endless. He grabbed onto them with fervor.
He worked diligently at the computer in his office, deep in concentration on an impending contract, making sure every element was in his favor, but providing his client a lot in terms of monetary incentives that encouraged return patronage. His repeat client roster was more extensive than most publishers’, so through his narcissist quirks, he executed many things right. He had more people wanting to work with him than there was time for, and the books he published reached the right lists for more than the right sum. His authors consistently landed on the New York Times bestseller list, but he demanded that their work earn it. He would not budge on his benchmark criteria. No fluff, nor one-time or first-time authors for him unless their professionalism or pitch impressed him. He was a pro at recognizing talent.
Carol entered, unacknowledged, dressed to the hilt. He generously compensated her double for coming in on the weekends, even if it was just to admire her curves. “Mr. Reynolds, may I go to lunch now?”
He waved her off, without looking up. She departed meekly.
A few minutes later, the phone rang. “Damn, why didn’t I tell her to put the machine on?” He reluctantly answered it. “Yes?”
“Have you recovered yet, mate?”
Pretending not to recognize the voice, he pushed the record button. “Who is this?”
“You know who.”
“What do you want?”
“Ooh. You sound too strong after your ordeal. I think next time I’ll have to do something a little more flamboyant.”