Before Cain Strikes

by Joshua Corin

  He and Special Agent Piper were observing the suspect from behind the one-way glass. Mercifully, Briggs was off somewhere else in the building, probably gabbing with the SWAT boys.

  Vitucci turned to Tom, whose attention was absolutely focused on the deviant on the other side of the glass. “We appreciate it, by the way. Letting us collar him, take him here rather than into federal custody.”

  “It’s your case, Detective.”

  “But you think he’s part of this fucked-up website?”

  “He’s part of it.”

  “He smells like a distillery. So what’s the game plan, chief?”

  Tom told him.

  They entered the room.

  As per Tom’s game plan, Vitucci led the charge.

  “Hey, there, chuckles. Hope you’re comfortable. You’re going to be here awhile.”

  Jefferson let out a long, bored sigh.

  “Just so we’re clear, I’m still Detective Vitucci. In case you’ve forgotten, this is Special Agent Piper, and you’re the scumbag up shit creek.”

  The scumbag up shit creek shifted his gaze to Tom, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and who appeared…embarrassed?

  “So now that we’re all acquainted, scumbag, why don’t you start by telling us about the three dead girls?”

  “Which three dead girls did you have in mind, Detective?” Harbinger’s voice took on a nasal patrician tone. “History has provided us with so many.”

  “You know who I’m talking about.”

  “Detective, I just deplaned a trans-Atlantic flight. I don’t even know what time it is.”

  “Eight-fifty,” said Tom.

  “Thank you,” replied Harbinger.

  Vitucci leaned in to him. “We found the bodies.”

  “Were they hiding?”

  “They were exactly where you left them, buddy. In the basement underneath the store.” The cop flashed a canary-eating grin. “Funny neither you nor your aunt mentioned there even being a basement when we first interviewed you. I guess you two must have forgotten. But see, the doors in the alleyway didn’t add up. Six doors. Five stores. What was the sixth door for? So we opened it and would you look at that? A staircase leading belowground. Inside the basement, besides the cobwebs and the mold, were all these extra rolls of carpeting, not to mention blood and three garment bags stuffed with mothballs—and the headless bodies of the innocent girls you murdered, their breasts mutilated!”

  Harbinger watched Tom shift his position on the wall. The G-man looked uneasy, as if…

  “Maybe it’s the long flight I was on—maybe my ears are still clogged from the air pressure—but, Detective, you sound a little full of shit.”

  Vitucci’s face reddened. Harbinger watched him puff out his chest: classic Neanderthal reaction.

  “You think we don’t have you dead to rights, you smug son of a bitch?”

  “I think if you did, I’d be in a jail cell right now and you wouldn’t be in here rambling. I think if you did, the FBI over there wouldn’t look perturbed at your performance. Why are you here, Special Agent Piper?”

  Tom took a deep breath and, with bated reluctance, answered, “Your family has expressed concern over the way this investigation was being handled by the local authorities. And I can’t say that I blame them.”

  Vitucci wheeled on him. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, come on. Even your so-called suspect knows it. You’re grasping at straws.”

  The detective looked as if he was going to take a swing at the special agent. To his credit, the special agent didn’t even wince. Vitucci backed away, fuming.

  “The truth is,” continued Tom, “I found the bodies. But the Newark P.D. doesn’t want to be shown up, so they dragged you in here in one last-ditch effort to make a case based on absolutely nothing.”

  “He’s the only one who had opportunity!” Vitucci bellowed. “He had a key to the basement!”

  “Mmm-hmm. Except keys can get copied. Or didn’t you know that?”

  “This is bullshit!”

  Vitucci stormed out of the room.

  “I’m sorry about this,” said Tom, offering Harbinger another sympathetic look. “Just sit tight. I’m going to get you released ASAP. Just know, Mr. Harbinger, that in case you or your family wishes to pursue any type of legal retribution, the Bureau had absolutely nothing to do with this unfortunate screwup.”

  “Oh, I know where the fault lies. Thank you. And I’ll remember your name to my uncle.”

  Tom nodded his appreciation and left the room. Vitucci stood there with a cup of coffee in his hand. He appeared calmer, although not by much.

  “I hate playing the bad cop,” he said.

  “Because you’re a good cop,” Tom replied. He glanced through the one-way at Harbinger. The unease that had been so visible on the man before was gone. Jefferson Harbinger was now the epitome of serenity, patience and hubris. This was the man in control, as he so needed to be. This was the man those three girls had encountered the night of October 30.

  Now they needed to wait.

  Tom found a quiet corner of the station house and dialed Penelope Sue. She was in the hotel room, painting her toe nails.

  “Lime-green,” she told him. “And I’ve got some polish left if you want me to do your nails when you get back.”

  “Not a chance,” he replied.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure, Tom Piper. You’ve got to sleep sometime.”

  Tom let a small smile penetrate his lips and he almost forgot about the monster in the other room. “I’m going to be here a little longer.”

  “I figured.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t come up to New York to be alone.”

  “I came to be here for my man. And when he’s done saving the world, I’ll be here in his bed, keeping it warm.”

  “How did you get to be so amazing?”

  Penelope Sue chuckled. “Don’t you want to know.”

  They exchanged tender, sweet nothings, but eventually had to say goodbye.

  Briggs had returned from his gabfest with the SWAT boys and stood beside Vitucci by the one-way. Tom reached for the doorknob to the interview room.

  “If this works,” said Briggs, “it’s still our collar, right, Dixie?”

  Tom shrugged him off and entered the room.

  “They just have to file the paperwork,” he told Harbinger, “and you’ll be all set.”

  “Thank you again.”

  “This whole thing is really unfortunate.” Tom returned to his leaning place on the wall. “Oh, by the way, how was Switzerland?”

  “It was resplendent. You should go.”

  “Not on my salary.”

  Harbinger responded with a universal “whatcha gonna do” shrug.

  “It must be nice, being rich.”

  “I could complain, but I’d be lying.”

  “Your parents…they died, right? When you were a baby? That’s why your uncle and aunt raised you? I’m the product of a broken home myself.”

  “Of course you are.”

  Tom smiled. “You think I’m playing you.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Can’t fault a man for trying, right?”

  Harbinger smiled back at him. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “I’m going to go check on that paperwork. Do you want anything to drink?”

  “Two parts absinthe, one part champagne.”

  “How about a cup of coffee?”

  Harbinger shrugged (as best he could in shackles). “I suppose.”

  Tom ambled out of the room.

  “So much for that idea,” grumbled Briggs.

  “Patience,” Tom replied, and he took out his cell phone.

  Mineola picked up on the first ring. “Yo.”

  “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “I’ll sleep when I’m married. What do you need?”

  “Can you run a location check on Cain42’s server?”

  “Sure thing. G
ive me a minute.”

  He gave her a minute.

  “Huh,” she said.

  “It’s moved, right?”

  “Still in Switzerland, but no longer where it once was. How did you know?”

  “Get the State Department to run a trace on Jefferson Harbinger’s movements in Switzerland over the past few days.”

  Tom hung up and stared through the one-way at the smug redheaded young man. All Tom had to do was crack the bastard, and they’d have the server and, with it, the names of every member of the website.

  24

  Grover Kirk won the Great Hunt. The results were posted at 12:01 a.m. on Monday morning and Grover’s nine-victim tally trounced the competition (mainly because the FBI’s massive national dragnet, orchestrated by one Assistant Director in Charge Karl Ziegler, had snagged, over the two-day weekend, twenty-nine of the competitors before they’d had a chance to shed a drop of blood). As per Tom’s urging, the arrests of the twenty-nine would-be killers were kept on the down low, so as to keep from spooking Cain. In the end, only three website members were able to carry through with their actions, and those were the photographs that currently occupied Karl’s desk. Three photographs equaled four new victims. But didn’t the twenty-nine victims who had been saved balance out the four who had been lost?

  Not in the slightest.

  Grover Kirk was declared the winner at 12:01 a.m., and at 12:05 a.m. Grover’s email account received a message from Cain42 himself, congratulating him on his laudable achievements and then informing him of the time and location for the prize delivery. Predictably, Cain42 had selected a public place. Less predictably, the public place he had selected was the end car on the uptown A-train as it departed from Washington Square between 4:01 and 4:16 p.m. Which day? This day, of course. Monday, November 22. No time like the present.

  The entire New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation dedicated that morning to strategizing the best way to infiltrate the meet-up and the safest method of taking down Cain42. It was decided that the passengers on the end car would all be undercover operatives. Other undercovers would be stationed in and around Canal Street to (subtly) keep civilians from boarding it.

  They took a break at 10:00 a.m. and Karl returned to his office. The photographs were still on his desk. He rubbed his tired eyes. He knew he had a minute, maybe two, before he had to call Washington and update them on the status of the operation. Everyone wanted a hand in this pie, including the director himself. This case would indeed make his career—if he didn’t first have a stroke.

  “I want in,” said Esme Stuart.

  Karl glanced up at her. When had she even entered his office?

  “This is me saying no,” he replied. “Go away. And please close my door.”

  She closed the door, with her on the wrong side of it. Great.

  “I’m not saying I need to be on the end car,” she continued. “But I deserve to be there on-site when he gets taken down.”

  “Mrs. Stuart, didn’t we have this discussion? You’re no longer a field agent. For me to authorize your presence in what could potentially be the line of fire would be a decision of gross incompetence. Go home. Your contributions to this case are greatly appreciated and very much complete. And besides…”

  “Besides?”

  “Grover Kirk has filed a restraining order against you.”

  “Oh, for the love of God.”

  Ziegler plopped down in his leather chair. “There you go. You know, prayer works. Prayer is welcome. Far as I know, nobody’s ever filed a restraining order against God. Hey, listen, with all the variables at play right now in this monster of a case, you really want to help us out, Mrs. Stuart? Pray. Because it’s when you see the end zone that you usually get tackled.”

  “And yet you’re willing to turn away a seasoned field agent—”

  “Ex-field agent.”

  “Karl, I need this.” She stared him straight in the eye. “You don’t know what’s going on in my life right now and you don’t have to know, but it’s bad and I can’t take another door slamming in my face. I just can’t.”

  He drummed his fingers on his desk, inches from the victim photographs. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He paused, let out a long sigh, opened the middle drawer of his desk, removed a form and handed it to her.

  “Read and sign,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Read,” he repeated, “and sign.”

  She read. She gasped. These were reinstatement papers, addressed to her, already signed by him.

  “I…”

  Ziegler’s eyes smiled at her. “Read the contract rider.”

  She flipped to the back and read the contract rider. It declared that should she terminate this contract, she would be forbidden from working for the federal government in any capacity, be it full-time, part-time or even as a volunteer.

  “You come back to the Bureau,” he said, “and, this time, you don’t quit. This time, we own you. Now, are you sure this is something you want, Mrs. Stuart?”

  She thought about Sophie. The first time she rolled over by herself (at two months old, very precocious). The first word she spoke (which was rain). Her first day of school (not so long ago now). Esme had been present at each and every one of those milestones because she’d had the luxury of free time. If she signed these documents, she signed away the likelihood that she would witness any more milestones. If she was in the field, working a case, the case had to take precedence. Lives would depend on it. Lives would depend on her.

  Many field agents had children at home. Maybe Esme would learn how they did it. Maybe Esme could do it, too. But what if she couldn’t? She’d done a piss-poor job so far at balancing work and family.

  “Mrs. Stuart, if this is a choice you’re going to make, make it. Or go home. Either way, decide quick. I have a lot of people far more important than you that I need to call.”

  As Esme literally held her future in her hands, Tom held in his a foam coffee cup that had been filled and refilled more times than he could count, although to be fair at that moment he had trouble even adding two plus two. He had been awake for…well, a long time. To be aware of how long would have required using those pesky numbers, and that part of his brain shut down around dawn.

  Jefferson Harbinger still hadn’t cracked.

  Tom had been correct before. The evidence they had against him, while overwhelming, was overwhelmingly circumstantial. Yes, Harbinger had opportunity, but as Tom himself had said, keys got copied all the time. Yes, there were those ghastly drawings, but if making bad art were a crime, half of Hollywood would be behind bars. Was Harbinger’s DNA on the bodies? Probably—they were still waiting for the lab results from the sample Tom had snagged off a can of soda Harbinger had sipped around 4:00 a.m. But so what if it was? His lawyer would just argue that Harbinger found the dead bodies and was too shocked to go to the police.

  Speaking of lawyers, Harbinger still hadn’t asked for one. That was how confident he was that the charges against him wouldn’t stick. And with a skittish D.A. arriving any minute, he could be proven right.

  Tom’s back was against the wall. He had to make him talk. But how? Again, he reviewed the drawings. To understand a madman, one must understand his work. What did this work say? That Harbinger was a misogynistic sadist? Yes. And? That he needed an outlet for his rage. Okay. So? Why hooks? Why—

  Then Tom saw it, in the corner of one of the drawings, and was reminded of something Vitucci had noticed when Harbinger was first brought into custody, what seemed like eons ago.

  It was time to play a hunch.

  First, though, he ran an errand. It didn’t take long. What he needed was right across the street. He returned with his purchases, catching some attention from the day shift. Briggs had gone home. Vitucci was napping in the locker room.

  Tom went into the room alone.

  “Hello, Jefferson.”

  He placed the whisky glass on t
he table, just out of reach from Harbinger’s grasp, and removed the two bottles from the brown paper bag. What he was doing was visible to anyone in the squad room watching the CCTV. If they had any objections, they could stop him. If the D.A. showed up, she probably would stop him.

  He opened each of the bottles.

  “Two parts absinthe, one part champagne, right?”

  “Special Agent Piper, are you assuming that if you become my bartender, I’ll open up to you and share sad stories of my childhood?” Harbinger let slip a sly grin. “Now that’s amusing.”

  Tom poured the drink, and then placed the bottles on the floor.

  The whisky glass remained just beyond Harbinger’s fingertips.

  “You like to be in control, don’t you, Jefferson? Prove it to me.” Tom moved the glass within Harbinger’s reach. “Don’t drink.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t think you can do it. Just like I don’t think you had any choice when you drew those sketches. I think you want to be in control, but the truth is, you’re not in control at all.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  Tom moved the glass an inch closer, dragging it along the wooden surface of the tabletop. “Prove me wrong.”

  Harbinger stared at that glass, then at Tom.

  “You know, Jefferson, I asked myself, why was a rich, smart boy like you working retail? Is it because that was the only job you could keep? Is it because your compulsive behavior alienates everyone around you? Is that why your aunt had to replace three clerks over the summer? Did you frighten them off?”

  “If I drink this, it proves nothing. It proves I’m thirsty. I’ve been in here for twelve hours!”

  “Would you prefer a Fresca?”

  Harbinger glared at him. “So, what, every alcoholic is a psychopath? Is that your theory, hotshot?”

  “No,” replied Tom, calmly. “But every alcoholic has an addictive personality. It’s a mental illness. They want to be normal, but they physically can’t help themselves. Know what I mean, Jefferson?”

  “You can’t do this. I have rights. You think this bullshit will stand up in a court of law?”

  “You’re probably right.”

  Tom grabbed the glass and pulled it away.