Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Title Page
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part Two
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Part Three
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Part Four
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Epilogue
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Psycho Hill - Preview
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Title Page
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part Two
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Part Three
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Part Four
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Epilogue
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Psycho Hill - Preview
Acknowledgments
Huddled Masses
By Derek Ciccone
Copyright © 2014 by Derek Ciccone at Derek Ciccone Books
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Books by Derek Ciccone
Featuring JP Warner (in order)
Officer Jones
Huddled Masses
Psycho Hill
Confederate Gold
Stand Alone
Painless
The Trials of Max Q
The Truant Officer
The Heritage Paper
The Jack Hammer
Kristmas Collins
This book is a work of fiction. Places, events, and situations in this book are purely fictional and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental
Part One —
Avenging Angel
Chapter One
Scottsdale, Arizona
December 21
There was blood in the water.
“Xavier Gallegos. Thirty-two, born in Mexico, came to the US when he was three. Had some run-ins with the law in his teens, but clean since joining the military right after high school,” the young FBI agent briefed him.
“At least until he gunned down three people in the mall with a sniper rifle,” Special Agent Hawkins responded with a sigh, unable to take his eyes off the lifeless shooter floating in the fountain. “You said he was in the military?”
“Served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but I can’t tell you much about his service. He’d been living in Phoenix the last two years, after re-joining civilian life, and made a living cleaning pools.”
“What’s the holdup on his military record?”
“Most of his file is classified.”
Hawkins was first surprised, then annoyed. “I’ve got three bodies here, and mass hysteria about to break out around the country four days before Christmas, so put in a call to the Director and get it declassified.”
“I did—and I was told those decisions were made, to use the Director’s words, above his pay grade.”
Above the Director of the FBI? Hawkins’ face tensed as he continued staring at the dead man. Five hours after the shooting and they still had a lot more questions than answers. He and his team had been flown in from DC this morning, while the Phoenix-based agents interviewed potential witnesses and gathered information.
His partner, Clarisse Johnson, joined him at the edge of the fountain. “What’s it say on his shirt?” she asked, pointing at the simple black T-shirt with block lettering. It was soaked with the bloodied water of the fountain, making the words difficult to decipher.
“It reads Huddled Masses across the front,” the agent replied. “With Immigrant on the back.”
“The new Arizona immigration laws are controversial, could it be related to that?” Hawkins asked.
“His parents were busted for drugs and sent back to Mexico when Gallegos was seven—he remained here, raised by an aunt in Guadalupe. And while we haven’t ruled out any motive, one of his victims, Delores Rodriguez, was of Mexican descent, s
o that wouldn’t be a fit.”
“I’d put my money on mental health,” Clarisse added. “Which might be why they don’t want us to see his military files. If he had previous issues, the quiet crisis of soldiers returning with broken brains just got real loud, real quick.”
“Did he say anything when the security guard confronted him?” Hawkins asked.
They instinctively looked up to the third floor where Gallegos had positioned himself—for someone as skilled as him, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. If not for the courageous security guard there was no way to know how many fatalities they’d be talking about.
“She found the janitor tied up and gagged in a third-floor closet. She then did a loop of the area, and came across a roped-off section with signs warning of a wet floor, and not to pass. Further on she found a discarded janitor uniform next to a mop bucket, which Gallegos had used for disguise. At that point, she started hearing the screams. She stepped around the corner to witness a man standing at the railing, aiming at the shoppers below.”
The agent pointed at the rifle that lay on the ground near the fountain, in the exact position it had landed. “She rushed him, and was able to shove him over before he could turn the gun on her. He died instantly upon impact—and we left him as is until you arrived. So to answer your question, there wasn’t much communication between the two.”
“Is there video?” Hawkins asked.
“From multiple cameras. Both the victims and the shooter. We’re merging the different angles right now, to provide you the best view.”
Clarisse thought for a moment. “I find it interesting that he didn’t kill the janitor. And if his goal was to murder as many as possible, he could have taken out another ten or twenty, easily. I think we’re talking about targeted hits.”
They took a seat on one of the mall benches, usually reserved for tired husbands who couldn’t keep up with their shop-till-they-drop wives. Hawkins was growing tired himself … of the senseless killing. In October it was Grady Benson, the serial vigilante killer. November brought the missing child case in Ohio that had a bad ending, which most of them did, and just when he thought he might get a December reprieve, along came Xavier Gallegos.
“We agree that he was targeting his victims, or at least one … Taryn James,” the agent said.
He sped through her bio. She was the wife of Walter James III, known to his friends as Wally. He also happened to be one of the richest men in Arizona. Taryn was the owner of an upscale boutique called East of Rodeo—named after the street in Beverly Hills. East of Rodeo had become very trendy within wealthy circles the past couple of years, and had expanded to Manhattan, Chicago, South Beach, and Paris. But the original was located in this Scottsdale mall. This made sense, since Wally James owned the mall. In fact, his grandfather, the first Walter James, was credited with being the originator of the American mall.
The agent displayed a photo of Taryn on a tablet device. She looked like she was purchased straight out of the trophy wife catalog.
“She had a colorful background prior to becoming Mrs. James. She was a dancer at a popular Scottsdale strip club, and was arrested on multiple occasions for robbery. Her M.O. was to bring out-of town businessmen back to her place to do things that wouldn’t end up on the expense report. But they would get more than they bargained for, as she would drug and rob them—betting that they’d be too embarrassed or scared to go to the police. But a few of them valued their wallets over their wife’s reaction, hence, the arrests.”
“Sounds like she landed on her feet … or on her back,” Hawkins said.
“Could you show just a smidgen of respect for the victim?” Clarisse responded with a disapproving look. Their relationship made oil and water look like Romeo and Juliet.
The agent continued, “Once Wally James came into her life that arrest record got cleaned up real quick. But sometimes you can’t completely scrub the past, so we are doing a thorough search into her previous life—maybe she rolled the wrong guy, or ruined a marriage, who knows.”
Hawkins shook his head. “The husband is the target, not her. Always follow the money, and nobody has more money around here than Wally James.”
“Any connection between James and Gallegos?” Clarisse asked.
The agent nodded. “We reviewed security video, and found that Gallegos had been tracking her. Store cameras caught him trailing her last week during one of her many shopping sprees, and he was spotted outside the gate of their home in Paradise Valley. He also made two stops at East of Rodeo the last couple weeks, and he doesn’t strike me as an upscale boutique kind of guy.
“Another factor was that he shot Taryn James first, the moment she stepped out of her store, which was his most difficult target. If he’d started with the others, she might have gotten scared and ran back into the store, and out of his scope. It was like he was waiting for her.”
“Tell me about the other victims. There’s got to be a missing link,” Hawkins said.
“Delores Rodriguez was Christmas shopping with her two children. And Elisa Webster was a local designer who was known for her handbags. She had been at the mall to check on stores that carried her line. The only link so far, is that both women were carrying bags from East of Rodeo, as they’d earlier made purchases there.”
“Sounds like we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Hawkins said.
“But this might help,” Agent Hendrickson, the third member of their team said, as he fast-walked toward them. Tall and thin with an unkempt beard, he looked much like Shaggy from Scooby Doo.
He handed Hawkins a piece of paper. “We located the shooter’s vehicle in the parking lot. This note was taped to a Yellow Pages book on the passenger’s seat.”
“Yellow Pages? Was he searching ads for a getaway driver?”
“Based on the letter, I think he planned to die for his cause,” Hendrickson said. “So maybe he was pricing funeral homes.”
“His cause?”
Hendrickson motioned for him to read.
I was brought to this country as a young boy, believing in the words posted at its entrance. But it was a lie. America is not about freedom and opportunity for all men. It is a place where the Haves enslave the Have Nots, and the chosen elite decide who stays and who goes … who lives and who dies. The only way to stop this tyranny is to stand up to it, and we have been silent for too long. So let this be a warning that Huddled Masses will no longer have silent lips.
It was about money—just in a different way that Hawkins thought. He flipped the note over, where a portion of the sonnet “New Colossus” was scribbled. The same words that grace the Statue of Liberty.
Give me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Hawkins got the sinking feeling that today’s shooting wasn’t an isolated incident, and there would be a lot more bodies washing up on those teeming shores … or in fountains at the mall.
Chapter 2
Rockfield, Connecticut
February 25
As someone who’d spent decades connecting my future to the past, the present wasn’t my comfort zone.
To further complicate things, I’d set up camp the last six months in a place where memories were hiding behind each corner. And no place was more infiltrated than the small gymnasium of Samerauk Elementary School.
I took a quick glance to the far end of the gym, which was anchored by a small stage where Gwen and I once starred in the fourth grade play about nutrition, and felt as if I was test-driving a time machine.
In the opposite corner hung the rope we climbed in gym class. I still hadn’t figured out the point of that exercise, but it did lead to a still-talked-about moment when Bobby Maloney grew too scared to make his way back down the rope, and the Rockfield Fire Department had to be called. It was a memory that always brought a smile to my face, so whenever I felt J-News trying to r
ise to the surface, I looked to the rope, and felt a calm wash over me.
The echo of the referee’s whistle drew me back to the present. My usually unflappable assistant, Eliot, blew out a frustrated breath as Madison, our point guard, sailed another errant pass out of bounds, returning possession to New Milford Elementary. Despite the optimism leading up to today’s game, it wasn’t shaping up to be our day.
I peeked at the old scoreboard—the same one that was here when I attended SES, seemingly centuries ago—we were still only down by six points, even if it felt like a hundred.
The most frustrating part of coaching was that I wanted to be out there helping the kids. But all I could do was watch as New Milford’s best player took about ten steps without a dribble, and scored another basket to build the lead to eight. “That’s traveling,” I barked at the referee, and it once again fell on deaf ears.
“Coach Warner—I think it’s time to go to our secret weapon,” Eliot suggested.
I smiled—I really liked the way this kid thought. But that wasn’t to say there was no point of contention between us. “I thought we went over this, I’m JP … Coach Warner is my brother.”
The real Coach Warner was my older brother Ethan, who besides being both a history teacher and head football coach at Rockfield High, was also the Director of Athletics for the region. This meant the Samerauk Elementary girls’ basketball team came under his jurisdiction. And he somehow convinced me that to keep busy during my transition from international news correspondent to retired farmer in my hometown, I should coach a basketball team made up of ten-year-old girls, including my niece, Ella. And while at first this seemed to rank with the many other poor choices I’ve made over the years, it turned out to only be a bad decision for our opponents, as we were one win away from an undefeated season.
We even captured the notice of the local media, who were here to cover the big game. Sure, the local media consists solely of my girlfriend, Gwen Delaney, and I had to pull every string I could think of to make it happen—I’m already booked for the ballet next month—but sometimes you got to pay the price to tell a great story.
I glanced up at Gwen, who was sitting up in the rickety, pullout bleachers, and typing away on her laptop. Even in her minimalist look of baggy sweater and little makeup, with her raven hair in a ponytail, she was still the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
Next to her sat my mother, who took time away from running the Rockfield Historical Society to watch her granddaughter’s final game of the season. And on Gwen’s other side was our biggest fan … literally. My longtime confidant, and former professional wrestler, Jeff “Coldblooded” Carter, who was in town to attend tonight’s charity dinner for Byron Jasper’s foundation. I almost expected to hear his booming voice echoing through the gym, threatening physical harm to the referee for the missed call. But he’d been rather subdued since his arrival last night, at least for Carter, with his attention focused on his latest girlfriend, Kate.
Huddled Masses (JP Warner Book 2) Page 1