by David Salkin
English speaking communities who are afraid of the police.” “What about a job? The guy needs money.”
“I thought about that, too. I figure he pulls enough cash off his
victims that he can survive on that. Maybe not live rich, but get by. If
he’s not picky, there are plenty of cheap places to live in the city’s poor
neighborhoods.”
“You think he’d maybe work at a blood bank? A hospital? Access to
blood that way?”
“I thought about that, too. I checked his prints against every hospital
and medical center that requires them in the city. Nothing.” “So
now what?”
“We keep working the cases and hope we get lucky. We just need a
little break…”
Thirty-Nine
VWX
Adirondacks
Adam and Sara made love like Honeymooners the entire first afternoon. Adam insisted on a picnic rather than eating in bed, since it would be impossible to hide “not eating” while lying naked in bed with Sara. The chef at the house prepared a nice meal and bagged it for them, and Adam and Sara went hiking up the trails into the mountains. Sara had brought her camera and was enthralled with the landscapes. She snapped a few shots of Adam, but his eyes kept coming out funny and she was getting frustrated with her photography abilities, blaming herself for the way his blue eyes looked silver in the color pictures or totally black in the black and white the pictures. She cursed her camera, and Adam encouraged her to concentrate on the scenery and wildlife instead.
• 218 • Sara snapped away—frogs, birds, foliage, mountainscapes, trees… it was beautiful, although a bit cold in the mountains. Adam enjoyed watching her. She loved the details of nature, and her passion for trying to capture it on film led him to start his line of questions that he hoped would ultimately lead to the conversation he wanted to have with her. He spoke philosophically as they walked, hoping to capture her deepest thoughts on life and death and afterlife. Or was it afterdeath?
“It’s amazing, isn’t it, Sara? The interconnection of everything. The whole life cycle is so visible out here.”
“It really is. I lovefall. Everything dies so boldly! The colors screaming, like a protest against their death. Then bleak winter—then the spring brings it all back again. I love the change of seasons.”
Adam loved what she had said. “Yes, the colors screaming in protest of their death. I wouldn’t have imagined you seeing it that way. But it really is like that, isn’t it?”
Sara smiled. “Well, no one wants to die, not even the leaves. Survival instinct.” She knelt down and snapped a black and white picture of a fern against a stone background. It was perhaps clichéd, but beautiful nonetheless.
Adam was smiling again at her comment. She understood perhaps more than he had given her credit for. “Yes, survival instinct. You can pull the legs off of a frog and it will refuse to die. It won’t lie down and just roll over. In fact, it may even regenerate a leg.”
“Well, that’s gross, but I see your point.”
Adam frowned. “Nature is vicious, Sara. This serene scene before you. Do you think it is all love and peace out here?”
“It’s beautiful out here!” she said with a smile, and snapped another picture of him. “Damn! You eyes are so blue they won’t come out right!”
“You are naïve, pretty girl. The roots of these quiet trees run underground and try and kill their competitors. The weeds and flowers send poisonous chemicals underground to murder each other. They make poison from their leaves and berries. Birds eat every insect they can find. Insects with stingers, by the way, that would poison and eat their prey as well.”
She looked at him with a funny expression. “Why the dark mood? It’s so nice out here. Why are you thinking about all the violence and death? You just got laid for three hours! You should be in a great mood!” She stood up and gave him a quick kiss.
“I am in a great mood. And I can still taste you,” he said, trying not to picture her throat ripped open. “It’s just that I want to know more about you. About how you perceive the world. Life and death.”
“Holy cow, Adam. Most guys roll over and go to sleep after sex. You get deep!” She laughed. “Life and death, huh? I have no idea, really. I’m a good Catholic girl, although I guess you wouldn’t know after today’s session, huh?” She blushed slightly. “I guess I believe in Heaven. I figure, eventually, we will all find out. In the spring, everything comes back to life. Maybe that’s what happens to us, too.”
Adam smiled. “There’s something ‘after’. I’m quite sure.”
“I never asked you, are you religious? What are you?”
“I am the reverse of religious. Those that would offer an opinion on afterlife have no clue about that which they preach. The churches are a joke. A business. Their talk of God is angering, like they know something we don’t.”
Sara was surprised by his angry tone. “So you’re an atheist? Agnostic? What turned you off?”
“A lifetime of experience. A very long lifetime. I believe in what I see out here—the frogs eating the bugs. The birds eating the frogs. The snakes eating the birds. The need to feed and survive. It’s a vicious world, Sara. There is predator and prey. That’s all.”
“Well, you did eat me earlier,’ she joked, trying to lighten his mood.
He didn’t smile, thinking about what it would be like to eat her heart and liver. To suck her body dry of every last drop of blood and watch the life drain out of her.
“Come on, Adam! I’m joking! You have a dark side,” she said with her pleasant laugh.
“You have no idea,” he said. He forced himself to smile and lighten things up a bit, but he wasn’t done pursuing his conversation with her. He kissed her, and took her by the hand, leading further up the trail. It was steep and she was breathing heavier, the noise of her breathing making Adam crazy inside. He wanted to hear her scream in pain…he pushed the thoughts away.
“So if you don’t believe in God, what’s the meaning of life? Everything just eats everything it can?” Sara was playing with him.
“Everything eats and reproduces,” he said, thinking about the dog he had to tear apart in his apartment after creating its new life after death. Or was it death after life?
“Eats, reproduces and dies,” she said.
“Not always,” he said.
Sara laughed. “So you do believe in Heaven!”
“I didn’t say that. I just know there is more than what you see.”
“And how do you know?” asked Sara, intrigued by this interesting man who treated her so well, was wonderful in bed (and on the counter and in the Jacuzzi and against the wall), and had a very serious side that she was now seeing for the first time.
“I have seen things you can’t even imagine,” Adam said softly as they walked along the trail.
She looked over at him, a bit uneasy at his tone. “You mean, like in the army?”
“Oh yes, there, too. Unimaginable suffering. So much blood, Sara. Blood is life. It’s what it’s all about I suppose. Blood. The life force. I’ve seen it leave so many humans. You watch the eyes go dim. The heart stops its loud pounding.” He could hear
her heart beating faster from the uphill walk. “The screaming. People torn to pieces.”
Sara was now feeling uncomfortable. “I’m so sorry, Adam. I had no idea about your life in the army. I guess you had some horrible experiences.”
“Horrible? No. I wouldn’t say horrible. I would say it was life changing,” he said with a smile that gave her goose bumps, his silvery blue eyes now lost in a sea of time as he remembered Jena.
Forty
VWX
Saturday in the City
Roy and Doug were back at Doug’s office when Roy’s cell phone rang. It was captain Ammiano. Doug watched his very animated cop partner on the phone with his boss. Roy was talking a hundred miles an hour and scribbling down notes. He was ma
king gestures to Doug as he spoke, letting Doug know that something huge was going on. When he finished, he thanked the captain and screamed at Doug.
“We got that son of a bitch! Finally! We got something!” Doug stood up without even realizing it. “What? What have you got?”
“Last night in Jersey, three women and two men were killed in a house fire. By coincidence, these same five illegals were working in a sweatshop in Newark. The shirt factory had video surveillance. Make a
• 223 • long story short—the five workers went missing. Some of their family and friends checked with their boss. Then they got the news about the fire in some abandoned house—but these people didn’t live at that address! Somebody killed them and put them there, and then torched the place to cover it up—sound familiar?”
“They got a picture of our guy?”
“Yes! The shirt factory went back through last night’s tapes to see what time they left, if they were together, all the usual questions for the Newark cops. In the video, there is a guy standing around outside for a long time watching the joint, and then he follows this group of workers as they leave. The motherfucker looked right into the camera! Captain Ammiano is emailing it us right now! Open your email!”
Doug hopped into his seat and punched up his mail, saw the document with attached photo and opened it on his screen. It was a black and white photo, and a bit dark and grainy, but you could definitely see the man’s face clear enough to make an ID. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered without even realizing he was speaking out loud. He was looking into the face of pure evil.
“That’s it? That’s our vampire?” asked Roy, somewhat amazed that the thing looked like a regular man, about thirty years old.
“Weird, huh?” asked Doug. “I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I guess it wasn’t this guy. Then again, serial killers were always the quiet guy that lived next door, too, know what I mean?”
“Let’s get this face on every television set in America! Someone out there knows who the fuck this sick bastard is!” screamed Roy, his adrenaline pumping like a linebacker before the big play.
“Doing it right now. I’m emailing my boss, too. This is the first real break in almost two years of busting my ass, Roy. This is huge!”
“Damn right. Pure luck. We had notified every department in the five boroughs and in north Jersey and southern Connecticut about this guy’s MO. Any mysterious deaths, arsons, violent murders, dead bodies—anything and everything was to be sent to the task force. Captain Ammiano saw it and checked with Newark. That video tape may have just broken this wide open.”
Within two hours, every news network in the tri-state area was broadcasting pictures of a man wanted for questioning in several violent crimes. While he wasn’t listed as a suspect, he was listed as a subject of interest that should not be approached, but should be reported to authorities immediately. A phone number for the FBI’s special switchboard set up a dedicated call center and waited. It didn’t take long.
· · ·
Sharon White had been half dozing in her hospital room, heavily sedated after her emergency appendectomy. She was sore and tired, and had to blink three or four times to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating when she saw Adam’s face on the television. She listened to the broadcast and grew terrified. There was no doubt—this was the same man Sara had introduced to her at the pub. The same guy that saved her life by making Sara tell her to go to the hospital. She grabbed the phone and dialed the number on the television screen. She was transferred twice after telling her story, thanked for calling in, and transferred yet again. When the call was sent directly to Doug’s office, he put her on speaker phone and he and Roy took the call themselves.
“Miss White? This is Special Agent Doug Patmore with the FBI. I am sitting here with Sergeant Roy Ruiz of the NYPD and this call is being taped. Thank you for calling. Can you please tell us everything you know about the subject in the picture?”
“As I told the other woman…” “Please just start from the very beginning,” said Doug calmly. “Go back as far as you can, and give us every detail.”
“I was with my best friend Sara. She introduced me to her boyfriend. His name is Adam Priest…”
She continued to speak as Roy hopped behind Doug’s desk and accessed the New York Police Department’s CODIS computer. Within a few seconds, he had twenty seven Adam Priests living in Manhattan. He pulled up all of the driver’s licenses and went photo to photo until he saw the same man from the video surveillance staring back at him from Doug’s screen. He grabbed Doug’s arm as Doug scribbled notes from Sharon. Doug nodded as he looked at the screen, and continued his questioning. He took Sharon off speaker phone so Roy could talk to him without Sharon hearing him.
Doug asked Sharon, “And he told Sara that you needed a doctor?”
“Yes! He saved my life! I don’t think he is any killer, officer. But the report I saw on TV scared me. He and Sara went away together this weekend. If he is some type of dangerous criminal, Sara needs to know right away.”
“Have you attempted to call her yet?” asked Doug, now very worried.
“Yes, I got her voice mail on her cell phone. I didn’t leave a message though, because I didn’t want to freak her out until I found out what was going on. So what is going on? She’s my best friend. Is she in any danger?”
Doug exhaled. Adam hadn’t been tipped off yet—maybe. “Where did they go, Miss White? You said they went away for the weekend. I need to know where.”
“Sara was all excited about some five star place up in the mountains. A B&B. Supposed to be real romantic. Oh, God. Who is this guy? Is he dangerous? Please! Tell me what’s going on!”
Roy whispered, “I have an address. Midtown, right in my friggin’ precinct. I’m calling this in. I want SWAT at his apartment right now.”
“He’s not going to be there. Just wait a second.” He went back to Sharon White. “Do you remember the name of the place? Please, Sharon, this is very important. I need you to really concentrate. What was the name of the place they were going?”
Sharon tried to think. She was on pain meds from her appendectomy and was a little groggy. “Agent Patmore, honestly, I can’t think straight. Adam saved my life. I had an emergency appendectomy. He knew I was sick somehow—I didn’t even know I was sick. He told Sara, and Sara made me go to the emergency room. My appendix burst. I might have died if he hadn’t told Sara. What’s going on? Who is this guy? How did he
know ?”
“I’m not sure, Sharon. Right now, the main thing is finding your friend. Please. Concentrate. They were going to a bed & Breakfast place…upstate?”
“Yeah, in the mountains.” She yawned. “Hold on.” Doug could hear a nurse giving her a hard time about being on her phone. She came back, sounding groggier by the second. “I have to go now,” she mumbled.
“Put the nurse on the phone, Sharon!” screamed Doug.
He waited through the shuffling of the phone, and a nurse came on rudely. “This patient just had surgery and needs to rest! You will have to call her tomorrow.” She hung up.
“Fuck!” screamed Doug. “Let’s go!”
“To his apartment?” asked Roy, standing up and grabbing his jacket.
“No! To the hospital to interview Sharon White. The frigging nurse just sedated her in the middle of my goddamned interview! Come on!”
The two of them raced down the hallway towards the garage. “What about his apartment?” screamed Roy, still holding his notes and the printout of Adam’s license.
“He’s not going to be there! Sharon White says Adam took Sara Somebody up to the mountains to some romantic bed and breakfast place. Adam warned Sharon to get to a hospital right before her appendix burst, so maybe he actually gives a shit about this Sara woman. We need to find them fast. I’ll send a team over to his apartment, but you and I need to speak to Sharon!”
Forty-One
VWX
New York University Hospital
Doug and Roy made many phone calls between the two of them as they ran to Doug’s car. Roy checked with dispatch to find out which hospital Sharon White was in, which took several anxious minutes, while Doug had a tactical team go to Adam’s last known address with a forensic team to check the place out. By the time they got to the car, they were both huffing and puffing, excited to finally have a real lead.
They raced across town with lights and sirens and forced their way through the hospital security up to Sharon’s room. Sharon’s mother was horrified to see the two men bully past the nurses.
“Who are you? My daughter is very sick! She just had surgery! Get out of here!” The nurses were screaming at them as well. Doug pulled his FBI Badge. “I am Special Agent Doug Patmore. This is a matter of life and death. Sharon’s friend Sara is in serious danger and I need to interview Sharon!”
“Well you gonna’ have to come back tomorrow—this child is sleepin!” barked a large black nurse.
“I am telling you that I am going to speak to this patient, or I will charge you with obstruction of justice! Now wake her up!”
A doctor walked into the room, looking pissed. “Does someone want to tell me what is going on in here? This woman just had surgery! Why are you in here?”
Doug and Roy turned to face the doctor, both of them whipping out their badges.
“NYPD!” snapped Roy. “And this is Agent Patmore, FBI. We need to speak to your patient now or someone may die! Do you understand me? We are trying to save her friend’s life!”
Sharon’s elderly mother spoke up. “Whoselife? What’s this all about?”
“She has a friend named Sara,” said Roy.
“Yes. Sara Lockhart. That’s her best friend. She in some kind of danger?” she asked.
“Yes! That’s what we are trying to explain. I was interviewing Sharon and a nurse put her to sleep and cut off the phone call!” screamed Doug, his cool demeanor now out the window. “I need to speak to her right now or her best friend could be