by Blake Pierce
This act came to a stop as she reached apartment 306. She had a rough idea of how she wanted to initiate the conversation. But she also knew that a man with a history of any sort of murder—especially murder for hire—was always going to be on the lookout for bait-filled conversations…especially from strangers.
She knocked on the door and stepped back, making sure that anyone on the other side would clearly be able to see her through the peephole in the door. When there was no answer, she knocked again, louder this time. She even pressed her head to the door, curious to see if she could hear any movement from inside.
After thirty seconds, she was confident that no one was home. Or, if they were, they were dead asleep at 7:15 in the afternoon. She took a quick look up and down the hallway, found herself alone, and pulled the lock pick out of her coat pocket. She worked quickly, relishing the feel of something she had once done many times before. Now, years removed, it felt almost like a superpower. She felt and heard the lock turn all at once. Instinctually falling back on her training, she knew to enter at once. If there was anyone inside, they’d expect a bit of a pause between having their lock picked and the actual entrance. By going in right away, it created the element of surprise.
She entered at once, her hand instantly going for her Glock. She knew that any use of it would get her into serious trouble, as she was not actually on the case. Still, her need to survive was a bit stronger than anything else in that moment.
The door entered into a small kitchen. There were a few dirty dishes in the sink, and an empty pizza box sitting on the counter. The kitchen led directly into the living area. A lamp was on in the corner, dimly lighting the place. There was a single armchair in the center of the space with a TV and a bookshelf along the far wall. It wasn’t a wreck of a place by any means, but it was clear that Zeus did not care much about interior decorating.
She stood in the center of the living area, now confident that no one was home. She ventured into the apartment’s only bedroom and had a look around. There was nothing out of the ordinary at first glance. A small desk in the corner contained a newer model MacBook and a few magazines which, when she leafed through them, she found was a mixture of pornography and weapons-related titles—Guns and Ammo, Tactical Weapons, and so on.
She opened the laptop and powered it up, unsurprised to find that it was password protected. There was a notepad by the laptop, the top page blank, but clearly missing some pages. She picked it up and looked to the first empty page. There were clear indentations in the paper, indicating that something had been written on the page above it before it had been torn off. It was hard to make out all of it, but she was pretty sure it read: Mon. 5:45. CI—Bronx. Rm 202
It read almost like a puzzle as far as Kate was concerned. It actually made her pretty sure she had read it wrong. But she checked it one more time and found that she had read it right.
She studied it a while longer. Today was Monday. If the Mon on that note meant today, then Zeus had left this very apartment at some point today with an appointment somewhere in the Bronx at 5:45. Somewhere with a Room 202. It sounded like a motel room somewhere.
A stirring of excitement started to take over, making her feel certain that whatever had been written was important—that she might be holding something incredibly helpful. CI, CI, what the hell is CI?
CI. Room 202. 5:45. Where would a man like Zeus—a man who was presumably a hitman or something similar—be meeting that had the letters CI? Or the initials.
Okay, maybe an apartment complex with the initials CI…
No, the note says room 202, not apartment 202.
The answer came barreling at her like a train. She tossed the pad back on the desk and bolted out of the bedroom, directly toward the front door. On the way down the stairs back out to the street, she pulled up Google and typed in two words under a search within the Bronx: Comfort Inn.
***
She sped along the way, fully prepared to show her badge and ID if she was pulled over by local law enforcement. She’d been enough similar situations in the past to know that most cops wouldn’t think twice about it when they saw a woman flashing FBI credentials. She was speeding not only in the hopes of getting to the Comfort Inn before whatever meeting Zeus was having was over, but because the day was wearing her out. Her drives, first out to the firing range and then to Buckingham Correction Center, felt like they had occurred three or four days ago, a sign that this very long day was catching up to her.
She pulled her car into the lot of the Comfort Inn seventeen minutes later, once again feeling quite fortunate that she did not live in New York and have to put up with the miserable traffic and busyness. Her nerves were starting to fire on all cylinders as she strode up the exterior stairs and to the open-air corridor that contained the majority of the second floor.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself as she came to Room 202. The fact that she had followed him here, based on his own personal notes, would be all the evidence Zeus would need to know that he was being investigated. There was a very good chance that this confrontation would get heated—maybe even violent.
Shit, she thought, hesitating at the door.
She then strolled by the window of the room, hoping to be able to peer inside. But the curtains were drawn and she could see nothing. With no other course of action to take, she steeled her nerves and knocked.
Just like the apartment, there was no answer. She knocked again, this time giving up on any sort of subtlety. “Mr. Beringer, it’s very important that you open the door.”
When there was still no answer, she looked back down to the parking lot and the neon Office sign. She went back down the stairs and into the office. A man dressed in a hooded sweatshirt sat behind the desk, typing something into an old laptop. Beside him, a woman was speaking to someone on a landline phone.
“Can I help you?” the man in the hoodie asked.
Kate showed her ID right away, not wanting to beat around the bush with formalities. “I’m Special Agent Kate Wise with the FBI,” she said. “I need to know who is currently in Room 202.”
The woman on the phone had taken an interest in the conversation. She was apparently the manager because she gave the man in the hoodie a shake of the head after looking closely at Kate’s ID.
“That’s private information, ma’am. I can’t just give that out.” He looked back to the manager, still on the phone. “Doesn’t she need a warrant?”
The manager quickly ended her call and came to his aid. “Yes, you need a warrant,” she said.
“Fine,” Katye replied. “I’ll get a warrant. And by that time, there will be enough police officers in the know. I’ll have probably a dozen or so around here, in the parking lot—for everyone to see. Or, you can let me up there right now, just me, to keep it nice and quiet.”
The manager sighed, looked to Kate’s ID again, and nodded. “Go ahead.”
The man typed something into the laptop, studied the screen for a moment, and said: “Adam Smith.”
A fake name if I’ve ever heard one, she thought. “How did he pay?”
“Cash.”
“Can you tell me when he checked in?”
Again, he studied the screen. “Five thirty-six.”
“I’ve tried knocking on the door and there is no answer,” Kate said. “I need a key to that room.”
The woman strode over to the computer and looked over the information while the man in the hoodie retrieved a room key for Kate. “He called about the room yesterday afternoon. Reserved it for tonight.”
The man handed Kate the key and she headed straight back out to the parking lot with a quick “Thank you,” over her shoulder.
She wasn’t quite as hesitant as she reached Room 202 this time. She went directly to the door. Before unlocking it though, she stood there for a moment, listening for any sounds from inside. After ten seconds of silence had passed, she inserted the key, turned it, and stepped inside.
She took one step in and
froze.
She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it certainly had not been this.
With a trembling hand, she shut the door behind her. She then turned on the light and tried to make sense of what had happened to the dead body on the floor.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The man had been shot four times. One shot had gone perfectly through his throat and another had entered his face just below the right eye. The other two were almost directly beside one another, high up on his chest. Kate saw that the one under his eye had gone in at an angle—probably the one that had killed him before he’d had time to choke from the one through the neck.
She had plenty of time to access the scene; between the time she’d called the NYPD and the arrival of the first patrol car, she’d had a whole five minutes alone with the body. While she’d waited for the police to arrive, one of the things she’d done was check the man’s wallet, which she found in his back right pocket.
The dead man on the floor was Malcom Z. Beringer.
The scene seemed pretty cut-and-dried at first—a dead body told the story pretty perfectly—but Kate quickly put a few other pieces together. First, the gunshot wounds looked identical to the one in the back of Jack Tucker’s head. The only real difference was the amount of gore present at this scene; the shot that had torn through his neck had produced quite a bit of blood—blood that was still wet.
Apparently, someone had called and asked to meet him here. And he had been killed for his troubles. Killed by someone who apparently did not participate in whatever weird code most hitmen had. The four shots, all scattered around the body, indicated that whoever did this had not been a pro.
When she looked around the room, she saw the butt of a gun sticking out from under the bed. She pulled it out with the tip of her shoe, not wanting to contaminate it with her fingerprints. She was not a gun expert, but she was pretty sure the gun currently sitting on the floor was the one she had mentioned so often over the course of the last few days: A Ruger Hunter Mark IV. It was equipped with a silencer.
The police had arrived as she had been checking out the bathroom. There was a single damp washcloth hanging on the side of the tub but other than that, the place seemed unused.
“Agent Wise?” an officer called.
She joined the officer and two others that came in behind him. They were crowding the doorway as the third officer closed it.
“You know him?” the officer asked.
“Not personally. No. But he was a point of interest in a case concerning the murder of Jack Tucker right here in New York a few days ago. His name is Malcom Beringer—known to some unscrupulous characters as Zeus.”
“You think he killed Tucker?” the officer asked.
“I don’t know. But what I do know is that this Comfort Inn and this room number were written on a pad at his house. He was to meet someone here at five forty-five this afternoon. Whoever reserved the room checked in under the alias of Adam Smith.”
“There was a local detective that was handling that Tucker case. Luke Pritchard. You want me to get him in on this?”
She thought it would be a smart idea but she was also very aware that she had discovered this body while not assigned to any particular case. Rather than dig her potential grave any deeper, she decided to play it safe.
“Run it however you’d like,” she said. “I need to step out and call my director.”
The officer nodded and the others parted to let her out of the room. She walked back out into the open-air corridor. She wasn’t sure if it was her nerves or the approaching fall starting to make itself known in the air along the upper East Coast, but Kate felt a little chill. She knew what she had to do and although she hated to admit it to herself, she was a little afraid.
She pulled out her cell phone and dialed up Duran. She didn’t bother with his office number, opting to go straight for his mobile.
“This is Duran,” he said. The tone in his voice indicated that he was a little irritated. Perhaps he’d seen her name and number on the display before answering.
“It’s Kate,” she said. “I know I’m no longer on the case, but I feel I should let you know that I’m currently standing outside of a motel where a man has just been killed. A man that very likely owned and was killed by the same sort of gun that killed Jack Tucker and Frank Nobilini.”
The three seconds of silence that followed this was heavy. When Duran finally spoke, there was a growl to his voice, the tone of a beast that had been nudged by a curious kid with a stick.
“Where are you?”
“New York. The Bronx.”
“And what the hell are you doing there?” The rage in his voice was like a quiet lion, slinking through the grass on the hunt.
She did her best to walk him through the course of her day. From her revelation about speaking with Alvin Carpenter, to finding the information about Zeus’s meeting at this Comfort Inn, from discovering the body and the gun to calling in the local cops. The only thing she left out was the bit of assistance she had gotten from DeMarco.
“That’s all fascinating and promising,” Duran said. “But you seem to be omitting the fact that you are there against my orders. You were here—present and accounted for and of a sound mind when I removed you from the case, correct?”
“Yes sir. And I apologize. But I think this murder and the gun involved…I think it points to something big in this case.”
“You understand that had you done this while on active duty, you’d be suspended, right?”
“I do. And you can do whatever you feel you need to. I understand. But I’m here. Right now, I’m here in the middle of it. I just ask that you let me keep digging. Sir…the blood in that room is still fresh. He hasn’t been dead for long. Whoever did it can’t have gotten far.”
“And what will you do when you find them? Have you considered that this man may have nothing to do with the Jack Tucker case?”
“I have. But the gun, sir. It’s the exact same kind Jack Tucker and Frank Nobilini were killed with. The chances of that happening and me finding it…it feels related.”
Duran let out a shaky sigh. She could nearly hear him gripping the phone tightly in frustration.
“What’s the guy’s full name?”
“Malcolm Zeus Beringer.”
“Got an address?”
“Plugged into my GPS. I’ll text it to you.”
“Do that. I’ll get someone on this…checking his cell phone records, criminal profile, the works. Give us until midnight. Kate…you do what you think needs to be done but you are walking on eggshells, you understand? And when this is over, you and I are going to have to have a serious fucking talk. Am I understood?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good.” And with that, he ended the call.
Kate relaxed a bit. While the conversation had gone much better than she had expected, her nerves were still chaotic. If nothing else, though, she now had a huge motivator going into the final stages of this case: based on Duran’s reaction, it might very well be the last one she ever worked on.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next several hours passed by in a flurry of activity. The police decided it would be more efficient to call in Detective Luke Pritchard and have him run the show, giving assistance where it was needed. A small base of sorts was set up in the parking lot of the Comfort Inn, where Pritchard tasked some of the officers were small jobs. He was taking charge within seconds of arriving on the scene. Kate was coming out of the main office as he started working things out, impressed with how well he worked with the cops.
She walked over, fully prepared to show her badge and ID. But before she could, Pritchard looked her way and gave a smile of acknowledgment. “Agent Wise,” he said. “I hear you were the one that found the body?”
“That’s correct.”
“How did you manage that? The PD have told me a few details but that’s about it.”
She found herself again running through a quick breakdo
wn of how she had come to Room 202 of the Bronx Comfort Inn. Pritchard took a few handwritten notes in a small ledger as she did so. When she was done, he scanned his notes, nodding here and there.
“I’ll stop by his apartment and see what we can pull from that laptop. Any word on the gun you found?”
“Almost certain it was the same kind used to murder Jack Tucker. It’s been bagged and is on the way to the station.”
“Great. And what are you up to right now?”
“I just finished speaking with the manager. They’re rolling back through security camera footage from this afternoon to see if there’s anything that might help to explain what happened. I’ve already got the bureau working on pulling up phone records and getting a criminal profile.”
“Great. The blood in there…it’s too fresh. I think if we work together on this, we can wrap it by morning.”
“Let’s hope so,” Kate said.
“Agent?”
They both turned to the sound of the voice from behind them. It was the motel manager, standing by the front door of the office. She was waving Kate forward, a look of reserved anxiety on her face. Kate assumed it was not in the motel’s best interests to have a murder investigation going on as it got later and later into the night.
“Let me check the footage,” Kate said. “If there’s anything worth noting, I’ll let you know.”
“Let me get your number then. I’ll do the same if we can manage to get anything off of Beringer’s laptop.”
They exchanged numbers before Kate left him to his business. She headed inside the main office where the manager was waiting for her. She led Kate around the back of the check-in counter to where a small office was set up. The manager allowed Kate to sit in the chair behind the desk while she navigated around the security camera software. She showed Kate the ropes quickly—how to fast forward, freeze frame, zoom in, rewind, and so on.