After a few minutes, Welch was brought out from the bull pen. The sedative had been quick acting. He looked meek and glazed and pathetic in his bloodstained prison blues. Welch’s wife, Gloria, sat in the front row of the spectator benches clad in a demure black suit. Mrs. Welch gasped when she saw him, and began weeping copiously and loudly.
Gabriel Colón called the case, and the judge began by demanding a report on the defendant’s suicide attempt. Melanie repeated exactly what the EMS technician had told her about the self-inflicted and minor nature of the injury. When Judge Warner wasn’t satisfied, Melanie got the tall, red-haired guy to come out and testify about it in person. Any other judge would have recognized the suicide attempt as the blatant ploy it was, but with Warner, it was an error on the prosecution’s part, and it put Melanie on the defensive. Donald Kerr saw that and exploited it for everything it was worth.
“Your Honor, Mrs. Welch is seated in the front row,” Kerr said in his impressive baritone. “She is distraught at her husband’s condition, as you can imagine. She has called in the best professionals in the field to address this extremely regrettable case of a man of medicine falling victim to addiction. We see it more and more. The stresses of the medical profession—”
Melanie just couldn’t stomach that pretentious garbage given what she knew about the defendant.
“Your Honor, this man isn’t even a doctor, and his name isn’t Benedict Welch,” she interrupted.
All hell broke loose. Melanie did her best to present the evidence concerning Welch’s false identity, but somehow she just ended up getting accused of sandbagging the defense by not disclosing her argument ahead of time. She trotted out Detective Hay to testify about the methamphetamine bust, and Donald Kerr turned that into a case of a hardened drug dealer—Miles Ortiz—entrapping a reputable man by taking advantage of his substance-abuse problem. Finally, Melanie pulled out her ace in the hole: the very real possibility, the likelihood even, that Welch was the killer that the press was calling the Butcher. The bloody driver’s license found in Welch’s desk. The e-mail sent from his office. The fact that he’d ordered the burglary of Suzanne Shepard’s apartment. But standing up before the judge, with the deputy chief of the Criminal Division looking over her shoulder and a court reporter taking down her every word, Melanie couldn’t allow herself to put her own safety before her sworn duty. She disclosed David Harris’s statement that, from behind, Welch didn’t resemble the man who’d kidnapped him.
And she lost.
48
Disheartened and anxious, Melanie trudged back to her office to find Detective Pauline Estrada still there, on the telephone, with a worried look on her face.
“I’m on endless hold,” Pauline announced, “but have I got news for you.”
“I’ve got news, too. Bad news. We lost the bail hearing.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. The judge let Welch out on home confinement. He has to wear an ankle bracelet. That’s the thing that Martha Stewart bragged on national television that she knew how to take off.”
“Don’t get upset.”
“Don’t get upset? Pauline, if I’m lucky, when he breaks out of his apartment, a little bell will sound in an office somewhere, so that when they fish my body out of the East River, some bureaucrat will go, ‘Oh, that’s what that noise was.’”
“Not that this is going to make you feel any better,” Pauline said, “but Welch isn’t the only guy you should be worrying about.”
“Why do you say that?”
“While you were gone, a couple of agents stopped by to deliver copies of a file from your search yesterday,” Pauline said.
“Agents Waterman and Mills?”
“Sounds right. Anyway, I was sitting here with nothing better to do, and I knew the file was about Welch, so I sneaked a peek. Hope that was okay.”
“An extra pair of eyes in a case like this is a blessing, Pauline. What’d you find out?” Melanie asked.
“Nothing you wouldn’t have found yourself the second you read my file on the Tulsa boys’-home arson. The man convicted for the Cheryl Driscoll murder, do you remember his name?”
“Sure. Edward Allen Harvey. I was thinking I should fly out to California and interview him. Ha, in all my spare time.”
Pauline pointed at the telephone she held against his ear. “I’m on hold with Pelican Bay right now.”
“Pelican Bay?”
“The maximum security facility in Northern California where Harvey was doing a fifteen-to-life bid.”
“Was?” Melanie asked, with a sinking feeling.
“Harvey was released four weeks ago. Fifteen years doesn’t equal fifteen years when you subtract out good time and so forth.”
“Where is he now?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. They’re supposed to know. He was convicted of a sex crime. Second-degree murder and sexual assault. That means he was required to register as a sex offender and give notice of his address.”
“Did he?”
Pauline shrugged and gestured hopelessly at the phone.
“Why am I getting a bad feeling about this?” Melanie asked.
“Because you have good instincts,” Pauline said. “The second I saw Harvey’s name, I made the connection. Edward Allen Harvey was one of the delinquents who absconded after the arson at the boys’ home. The news accounts said that he was the biggest troublemaker in the place, too, the one they suspected of killing the boy and setting the fire.”
“Harvey had two rape convictions before he was ever arrested on the Driscoll murder,” Melanie said. “And we have signature mutilations in the two murders. Carving a nasty word on the victim’s stomach is a highly unusual move. We’re looking at the same killer. Or killers. I knew that as soon as I read about the Driscoll case. The only difference is, I was thinking it was Welch. But maybe it was Welch and Harvey together.”
Pauline held up her finger and sat up straighter in her chair. “Here we go! Yes, hello, I’m still here…Huh, really?…What do you normally do in a case like that?…. I see. Well, pardon my French, but that sucks.”
Pauline fell silent while the person on the other end of the line spoke at some length. She took a few notes. At one point, Melanie caught her eye, and Pauline shook her head and made a disappointed face. Finally, she hung up.
“Well?” Melanie asked.
“In the wind. They don’t have the first fricking clue where he is. But here’s something interesting. You know who visited Harvey in jail the weekend before he was released?” Pauline asked.
“Who?’
“Suzanne Shepard. She must have tracked down the Driscoll case somehow, and come to the same conclusion you did, that Welch was in on it. So she went all the way to California to interview Harvey.”
“All she accomplished was attracting their attention. She dug her own grave.” Melanie picked up the group photo from the boys’ home, which had been lying on her desk. “Which one is Harvey?” she asked.
“Top row, far left.”
Melanie looked at the boy in the picture, who was big and blond and moon-faced, and the hair all over her body stood on end. “I’ve seen him before!” she said.
Pauline gasped. “Oh my God! Where?”
Melanie smacked herself on the forehead. “Shit. I don’t know, I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know.”
49
With two potential killers after her, Melanie suddenly found herself much happier to have Pete Terrozzi’s company. She decided not to make a move without his protection, and when she learned that Terrozzi’s ex-partner was currently assigned to the home-confinement monitoring division of the United States Marshal’s Service, she actually hugged the diminutive deputy. Terrozzi made a couple of phone calls, and pretty soon he’d put Melanie on the line with the guy who was personally handling the Welch case. That deputy, whose name was Curtis Jones, had just come back from Welch’s apartment, where he’d fitted and tested Welch�
��s ankle bracelet and the portable tracking unit that went along with it. Not only did the thing work, Jones reported, but it was one of the newfangled bracelets that utilized GPS technology. Light-years ahead of the old models that merely sounded an alarm when the defendant broke confinement. If Welch left his apartment, not only would Jones call Melanie immediately, but he’d be able to inform her of every move that Welch made.
Melanie was relieved to have this inside connection. She just didn’t expect to take advantage of it so soon.
Half an hour later, she was sitting in the sixth floor war room digging through the boxes from Target News that Assistant D.A. Janice Marsh had never finished searching. If Suzanne Shepard had interviewed Edward Allen Harvey mere weeks before her murder, Melanie reasoned, maybe there was a chance she’d kept in touch with him. Maybe she’d written down a phone number or an address that could lead them straight to Harvey. Melanie was deeply engrossed in Suzanne’s datebook when the war-room phone rang.
“Melanie Vargas.”
“Curtis Jones here.”
“Hey, Curtis. What’s up?” she asked nonchalantly.
“Benedict Welch is on the move. I’ve got him heading south on Seventh Avenue at a pretty good rate of speed.”
It took Melanie a moment to grasp what Curtis was saying. “You mean…he left his apartment?”
“Yeah, why do you think I’m calling?”
“I’m shocked. I didn’t think he’d actually do it.”
“Well, he did. Do you want to know where he’s going or not?”
“Yes, of course I do. Let me put you on speaker. Deputy Terrozzi is here.”
Terrozzi, who’d been leaning back in a chair reading the sports section, tossed his paper aside.
“Like I said,” Jones continued, “I got the man heading south on Seventh, doing around thirty, uh, wait a minute, closer to twenty. Uh, he slowed down. I think he hit traffic. He just crossed Forty-ninth Street. He’s picking up speed. Now he stopped. He must’ve hit a light.”
“Are you calling in the FBI?” Melanie asked.
“Not a chance. Prisoner’s in U.S. Marshal’s custody once he’s remanded,” Jones said.
“This is our collar,” Terrozzi agreed.
“I’ll go myself, but I’m waiting for some backup,” Jones said. “We’re short-staffed today.”
“How long will that be?” Melanie asked anxiously.
“Not long. Fifteen, twenty minutes. But don’t worry, we won’t lose him. We got him on the GPS.”
Fifteen or twenty minutes was far too long in Melanie’s view. “We have reason to believe this man is the Central Park Butcher,” she reminded Jones. “You should get him back in pocket immediately. Think of the consequences if he kills again after escaping from home confinement.”
“That could be a problem,” Jones admitted. “Reflect badly on the U.S. Marshal’s Service.”
Melanie glared at Terrozzi pointedly. “Deputy Terrozzi can back you up,” she said.
“Yeah, no problem. Curtis, I’ll come meet you,” Terrozzi said.
“He’s still stopped. I got him at the same location for the past few minutes. I don’t think it’s a stoplight. Too long.”
They waited until the blip on Jones’s computer screen had remained stationary for nearly ten minutes, then agreed that Welch had landed at his destination and would probably be staying there for a while. Melanie wrote down the address.
“I know the spot,” Terrozzi said. “I can almost guarantee you this is LaserMania.”
“What’s that?” Melanie asked.
“It’s an arcade and laser tag place right off Times Square,” Terrozzi replied
“Oh yeah,” Jones said, “a real gangbanger hangout, right?”
“Affirmative. They got shootings in there a lot. You see it in the papers.”
“What’s laser tag?” Melanie asked.
“It’s awesome,” Terrozzi said. “You go into this dark room with all your buddies and shoot each other with laser guns.”
“Does it hurt?”
Terrozzi snorted with laughter. “Does it hurt! Of course not. You wear these special vests. You shoot each other on the vest, and the hit registers on this digital scorekeeper gizmo. That’s how you know who lives and who dies. The team with the most kills after ten minutes wins.”
“Why would Welch be going to some laser tag arcade?” Melanie asked.
Terrozzi shrugged. “It’s a fun place if you like to shoot people.”
“But to break home confinement to do it? That makes no sense. The judge will be forced to remand him now.” Melanie stood up. “I guess there’s only one way to find out what he’s up to. Let’s go.”
They drove to Times Square. Curtis Jones planned to meet them there with a couple of other deputy U.S. marshals. As they hit Times Square, Melanie leaned sideways to appreciate some of the crazy neon signs, tall as skyscrapers and bright as the sun. This place was a party for the eyes. It was full of glitzy office buildings and well-dressed yuppies now, but still with those Vegas-style lights stretching as far as she could see.
The arcade was on a side street. Terrozzi pulled halfway up on the sidewalk right in front of it and turned off the engine, sticking his police placard in the window. Just as Melanie was about to get out of the car, he stopped her.
“You’re staying here,” Terrozzi said.
“What? No way.”
“If I’d been thinking straight, I wouldn’t’ve let you come this far. You can’t go inside. I know this place. Trust me, it’s a fricking zoo. Full of people. Dark. Loud noises from all the video games. It’s too dangerous, with the killer inside.”
“You’re supposed to be my protection detail, Pete. You stick to me like glue, remember? You can’t leave me here undefended.”
Terrozzi reached into a storage compartment between the two front seats and pulled out her Beretta. “Take this. You’re not undefended now. I’m going in to find this guy Welch. When Curtis gets here, you show him where to go. You know how to work the radio?”
She looked at it. It was just like the one in Julian Hay’s Navigator. “Yes.”
“Okay, good. So call somebody if you have a problem, okay? And don’t follow me inside or I’m gonna have to go up the chain on you. There’s nothing I hate more than reporting protectees to their supervisors, but I do it if I’m forced to.”
“I won’t,” she said. “Really. I appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”
Terrozzi smiled. “Thank you. That’s nice to hear.”
As Terrozzi disappeared in the direction of the arcade, Melanie put her gun in her handbag and resigned herself to a long, boring wait.
50
It was a thick summer afternoon in New York City, nearly ninety degrees, and the car heated up quickly. Terrozzi had turned off the engine and taken the keys, and in his rush, hadn’t thought to open the windows. Melanie opened her door to let some air in. Sitting parked halfway up on the sidewalk with a police placard in the window and the passenger door wide open, she felt too conspicuous. Not just conspicuous, but nervous. Out in the open. Without protection. The side street hummed with traffic. Blazing sunlight beat down on car windows, so she couldn’t see the drivers of the passing vehicles. Melanie told herself not to worry. Welch couldn’t hurt her. He was inside, with a federal marshal after him.
Of course, the marshal was Pete Terrozzi, not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Curtis Jones and the others from the U.S. Marshal’s Service hadn’t shown up yet. She pulled her bag onto her lap, keeping one hand on the gun.
Her phone rang, and Melanie jumped.
“Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Dan.”
“Where have you been?”
“Working. Listen, I got your message. You’re absolutely right. I want to talk, too. But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Where are you?” she asked. With everything that was going on, she’d nearly forgotten about their fight. She’d forgive him on the spot if he’d com
e here and protect her. She’d feel a hell of a lot safer with Dan watching out for her than with Pete Terrozzi.
“I’m in Queens,” Dan said. “I’ve been trying to get a lead on this guy Edward Allen Harvey.”
“Who told you about Harvey?”
“CODIS told me.”
“What?”
“We got the DNA results back. You didn’t hear?”
“No.”
“The sample taken from under Suzanne’s fingernails matched to one Edward Allen Harvey, released four weeks ago from Pelican Bay in California. So I pulled his mug shot, and guess what?”
“What?” Melanie grasped the gun tighter. Her nerves were tingling. If Harvey was the Butcher, what did that mean for Melanie, sitting out here in Terrozzi’s car with the door open?
“We already had a picture of him in line at the post office,” Dan said. “Big, inbred-looking guy with blond hair and little piggy eyes, remember?”
“I do remember.” That must be why, when Pauline Estrada had shown Melanie a picture of Harvey as a teenager, she hadn’t quite recognized him. She’d seen the picture from the post office, but in that shot, he’d been twenty-five years older.
“Harvey mailed the box of dog shit to Suzanne Shepard,” Dan said. “Harvey’s our Butcher. I tracked him to this flophouse in Flushing. I’m in his room right now. He’s not here, but it’s a goddamn treasure trove. I found a laptop computer with e-mails on it that he sent to Welch.”
“Do they prove Harvey and Welch were in on the Suzanne Shepard murder together?” Melanie asked.
“No,” Dan said firmly. “From everything I’ve seen, Harvey acted alone.”
“That can’t be right,” Melanie insisted. “We found Suzanne Shepard’s missing driver’s license in Welch’s desk. And Welch was the one e-mailing me, remember? The tech squad traced the last e-mail to his office.”
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