Exceptional Clearance

by William Caunitz

  Worthington’s head was deep within the hood of a black parka, and a black turtleneck was thick around his throat. He darted over to the priory and dropped a knapsack on the ground. He took out a length of rope that he tied in a reef knot around his right ankle, and tied the other end to the knapsack’s straps.

  Standing on his toes, he stretched his arms up and, placing his hands on the sill, shinnied himself up onto the narrow ledge, balancing himself by digging his fingers into the brickwork. Reaching gingerly into his parka, he pulled out a rubber plunger cup and suctioned it against the glass directly over the inside latch. Then he took out a glass cutter, placed the blade flush with the edge of the suction cup, and cut out a circle of glass, which he removed with the plunger cup and carefully placed on the sill. Inserting three fingers inside the hole, he slid open the hatch. With the heel of his palm he pushed up the window, then climbed inside.

  Standing perfectly still, he attuned his senses to the sights and sounds of the nunnery. As he crouched on the floor, somewhere upstairs a toilet was flushed.

  He untied the rope around his ankle and hoisted in the knapsack.

  A large kitchen was to his right. The parlor was on the left; it had heavy, rather ugly furniture and dark patterned wallpaper. He reached into his backpack and took out a Saronex overjacket and pants. He put them on and slipped on the hood and cape. He picked up his fangs and inserted them into his mouth. Reaching back into his pouch, he lifted out a folded piece of black cloth and unwrapped a gleaming new double-bit axe with a sawed-off handle. He slipped thongs attached to the axe’s handle around his right wrist, and walked noiselessly over to the staircase.

  The stairs led him up into a carpeted corridor with closed wooden doors on both sides. A night light glowed from a wall sconce. He padded over to the first door, unmindful of the axe’s cold blade bobbing against his knee. Quietly working the knob, he cracked the door and stepped inside a drab little room with a dresser and a small writing table and chair. A crucifix hung on the wall above the bed.

  A nun, who appeared to be in her late sixties and had short gray hair, snored peacefully. Looking down at her, his face puffed out with anger. The blood must be fresh, pure, in order to strengthen the bond. This one was old, useless. He raised the axe above his head, and was about to bring it down into her head, when he stopped. No. I’m not going to sully my offering by taking worthless blood, he told himself, and lowered the axe.

  As he was leaving the room, he heard a door open down the hall and jumped back. Peeking out, he saw a woman walking toward a door at the end of the hall. She wore a maroon robe and had short auburn hair glowing with the luster of youth. This one was young; his skin tingled.

  He watched as she went into the room and closed the door. He padded after her, placing his back to the wall, his hands outstretched, waiting. A toilet flushed inside the room. Tap water ran. The doorknob was turning. His lips stretched around his fangs.

  She stepped out, only to have his clawlike hand slap across her mouth, shoving her back inside. He kicked the door closed, and forced her over to the bathtub. Her robe fell open, revealing a pink cotton nightgown. He thrust the hand holding the axe under her legs. The free-swinging axe clanged against the tub as he swept her off the floor and raised her trembling body up into the air. Tears gathered in her frightened eyes, and her face had a deathly pallor. He arched her head back to uncover her soft throat. He brought it to his open mouth, his cold fangs kissed her, pricking her skin, and then he plunged the razor-sharp incisors into her throat, slashing them about as he withdrew, and snapping her head away from him as the scarlet jet rushed forth, spraying the wall and tub. Forcing the dying woman down on her knees, he held her head in the tub until the forceful stream had become a trickle. Then he dropped her body and stepped back. Looking down at the kneeling corpse, he saw that her robe and nightgown had gathered up around her hips. He stared at the thick curls between her legs, and thought of his Valarie. He hurried over to the door, opened it, and peeked out, thinking, Is this the only young one?

  A pack of homeless dogs skulked down Woods Place as the RMP cruised into the street. Holy Cross schoolyard was a gaping enclosed space; it resembled a prison recreation area with its twelve-foot-high fence topped by gleaming razor wire.

  The operator of the radio motor patrol car, a man in his early twenties with wavy black hair, parked just beyond the glow of the only working streetlight on the block, shoved the transmission into neutral, and switched off the headlights. His partner, the RMP’s recorder, who was charged with the operation of the radio and entering the time and verbatim record of all radio transmissions directed to their car, was a tall woman also in her early twenties. Her long black hair was pulled severely back and tied in a ponytail.

  She opened the glove compartment, reached down into the soggy bag between her legs, and pulled up two containers of coffee that she set down on top of the glove compartment door. Both officers took their containers, pried off the lids, notched drinking holes into the rims, and replaced the tops. Wisps of steam flowed out of the holes. Sipping coffee, the recorder asked, “You still seeing the medical student?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you ever get around to telling her you’re on the Job?”

  “You kiddin’? She wouldn’t piss on me if she knew I was a cop. I told her I was in law school.”

  Sipping her coffee, she asked, “What do you think of the new contract?”

  “It sucks. The PBA sold us down the river again.”

  “You’re right. The damn dinosaurs who run the union only care about enriching their own pensions, and don’t ever think about us having to make a living.”

  He turned in his seat, measuring her with growing interest. “You know, late tours make me horny.”

  She shook her head, smiled, and said, “If you want, I’ll get out and you can relieve yourself, but please use a handkerchief.”

  He sat stewing in mixed embarrassment and anger for five minutes. Then he looked straight ahead, scratched his jaw thoughtfully, and pointed to the automobile parked in front of them. “Strange place to park a new car, on a deserted side street like this.”

  “Lovers?”

  “I don’t see any movement inside.”

  She opened the door and slid out of the car, unholstering her revolver as she walked. With her flashlight extended in her left hand, she cautiously approached on the passenger side. The operator got out and approached on the driver’s side.

  Worthington was disoriented and almost faint when he walked from Erasmus Street into Woods Place and saw the policemen walking away from his rented car. The devils want to destroy us, he seethed, his fingers forming angry claws before he caught himself and composed himself, presenting a smiling, benign persona. “Good evening to ya, Officers.”

  “Do you live around here?” asked the recorder, directing her beam at the gaunt stranger.

  “I do. I’m Father McAndrews. I live in the rectory.”

  “It’s two A.M., Father,” said the operator, relaxing his guard. “What are you doing out in this deserted place?”

  “That’s my car,” the priest said, “and I’m on my way to give the sacrament of Extreme Unction to a dying parishioner.”

  “Extreme Unction?” the recorder echoed, arching a puzzled eyebrow at the bogus priest. “I haven’t heard a priest refer to that sacrament by that name in a long time. Usually they say ‘last rites.’”

  “Really?” the priest said, aware of the potential danger of her words.

  “Do you have any identification, Father?” she asked.

  Shaking his head at his overzealous partner, the operator rolled his eyes and looked away.

  The priest looked at her for a second or two and said, “I do, Officer.” He walked over to the RMP and slid his knapsack off his shoulder and onto the hood of the police car.

  The police officers gathered on either side of him, the operator on his right, the recorder to his left.

  “I suppose you just
cannot be too careful these days,” the priest said, unstrapping his knapsack, rummaging through the contents, sliding his hand around the axe’s handle, gripping it. “Ah. Here’s my wallet.”

  Whipping out the axe, he whirled and savagely smashed the flat side of the heavy blade against the recorder’s kneecap, shattering bones and cartilage and sending her reeling backward onto the ground, where she lay writhing in agony.

  The operator’s face paled at the sight of the steel coming directly at his head. Instinctively he went for his revolver, at the same time twisting his body away from the onrushing blade, and snapping his free hand up to protect his face.

  But the young policeman was not fast enough. The blade struck, severing his hand at the wrist, and plunging into his skull with a thudding crack.

  Splayed on her back, the recorder saw her partner go down and screamed, “You son of a bitch!” She fired three rounds at the fleeing assailant. The pain blurred her vision. She fired another round. Where did he go? Her back was propped up against the schoolyard wall, her face twisted by pain. “Bastard! Where are you?” She opened the cylinder and saw she had discharged four rounds. Reaching under her duty jacket, she pulled out a speed loader containing six rounds, and placed it on her lap.

  Keep calm, she told herself, looking at her partner and knowing with certainty that he was beyond help. Keeping her revolver at the ready, she turned awkwardly onto her side and, reaching into her jacket, extracted her portable radio from its holder. Groaning from the pain in her leg, she bit down on her lip, brought the radio up to her mouth, and transmitted, “Sixty-seven Boy, Ten-thirteen Woods Place and Erasmus. Ten-thirteen. My partner’s been killed.”

  Before Central had a chance to retransmit the Thirteen, the sounds of distant sirens splintered the night.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Vinda parked the department car on Woods Place and rushed over to the chief of detectives, who was leaning up against the schoolyard fence. “What happened?” Vinda demanded.

  “He killed a nun and a cop.” Leventhal filled in the details. Vinda slumped against the fence. “You told me on the phone that the convent was on Veronica Place.”

  “Yes. Right around the corner. The Cardinal was on the phone to the Mayor before I got to the scene.” He sighed. “The Mayor has asked for and received the PC’s resignation.”

  Vinda looked at his old friend, amazed to see him unshaven and wearing a badly wrinkled suit. He looked like he’d aged ten years overnight. “Has the Mayor named a new PC?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  Vinda eyed his friend with a mixture of concern and sadness. “I don’t know if I should offer condolences or congratulations.”

  “Neither do I. But now that a cop’s been added to the list, your head and mine will be the next ones to get chopped.”

  Looking at his friend, Vinda said, “You need a shave, Sam.”

  “I know,” Sam Staypress responded glumly, rubbing his stubble.

  “Who’d you name chief of detectives?”

  “Bookbinder, from Manhattan North.”

  “Good man. And what about Agent Orange?”

  “Chief Eberhart has decided to throw in his papers. He’s going to retire to Florida and pollute the environment down there for a change.”

  “What goes around comes around,” Vinda said, looking at the new PC. Then he stuck out his hand. Leventhal looked at it in surprise and then shook hands silently with John Vinda.

  Police cars and service vehicles had cordoned off Woods Place. The Emergency Service floodlight truck that had illuminated the scene during the early morning still had its lamps on, silver beacons glowing into a gray day. The killer’s rented car and the RMP assigned to the dead cop were corralled behind orange tape. A chalk outline of a body showed where the police officer had fallen; drying blood pooled next to the outline of the head. Crime-scene technicians, their tasks done, packed up equipment. Emergency Service teams still scoured the area, attempting to account for the four spent rounds the officer had fired at the perp.

  Two detectives from Brooklyn South Homicide Task Force came over to Vinda and the PC. “Commissioner,” a thin black detective said. Nodding to Vinda, he looked at his memo book and reported, “No witness ’cept the injured cop, no blood trail leaving the scene, which means she didn’t hit ’em. The doer’s car was rented to a ‘James Turner’ with an address that turned out to be a convenience mail drop on Twelfth Street in Manhattan.”

  The other detective, an overweight white man with a hawk nose and a prominent jaw, said, “We sent a team there. It’s a phony, rented by some fuckin’ phantom a year ago.”

  “Prints?” Vinda asked hopefully.

  “Plenny. All we gotta do now is match ’em up with some mutt,” said the thin detective.

  Vinda slowly looked over the crime scene. “Any signs of the murder weapon?”

  “Nada, among the missing,” the black cop said.

  “Let me see if I got this right,” Vinda said, and proceeded to reenact the crime. “He whacks the cop in the head with his axe. The cop goes down here.” Pointing, he added, “His injured partner is on the ground over there; she struggles to get her gun out of her holster and lets four go at the perp.” He folded his arms across his chest, adding, “And while she’s plugging shots at him, the doer is retrieving his axe from the dead cop’s skull.”

  “That’s how it plays,” Hawknose said.

  “If someone was unloadin’ lead at me, I certainly wouldn’t waste no time in hauling ass out of there,” said the thin detective.

  “Neither would I,” said the PC.

  “Unless you were Mr. Super Cool or a major wackadoo,” Vinda said, going over to the rented car and bending under the tape. The doors and windows of the car were smeared with fingerprint powder. Squeezing inside and kneeling on the front seat, Vinda looked into the open glove compartment. The car’s documents were inside a plastic packet. The doors on the passenger’s and driver’s sides had been opened, ventilating the car with cold air. Vinda took a deep breath. Despite the eddy of air, the saccharine smell of some strong perfume, possibly aftershave, still clung tenaciously to the interior. The ancients, the nun-psychologist had said, believed vampires could be identified by their putrid odor. He wondered if a twentieth-century version might try to conceal his imagined stink with some heavy-duty after-shave or cologne.

  Vinda backed out of the car. He looked toward Church Avenue. Barriers held back the curious and the media. Going to the corner of Woods Place, he looked up Erasmus Street at the impressive stone buttresses of Erasmus Hall High School. Turning back, he saw the new PC standing alone by the schoolyard fence. He went over to him. The PC nudged him out of earshot of the other detectives, and said, “John, to be appointed PC is every cop’s dream.”

  “Not every cop,” Vinda corrected.

  “I can do a lot of good for the Job and the people of this city.”

  “Sam? You have my vote, you don’t have to sell me.”

  “I’m skating on thin ice. If this case isn’t broken soon, I’m history.”

  “We’ll get him, Sam.”

  Leventhal turned to face the fence, slipping his fingers between the links. “Are you familiar with the provision of the Administrative Code that allows the PC to appoint one detective lieutenant to the permanent rank of Inspector of Detectives, without benefit of any civil service test? A three-rank jump.”

  “That line hasn’t been filled in over twenty years.”

  “’At’s true. But the line is still in the budget. Hizzoner asked me to tell you that the rank is yours as soon as you bring this guy down. And there will be grade money for all your people.”

  “The bureaucracy of self-preservation, protecting their nest with a bribe,” Vinda said. “You’re in office only a few hours and you’re already wheelin’ and dealin’.”

  “John, it’d be a promotion for a job well done, nothing else.”

  Vinda looked at him
and grinned and said, “I’m not in this for the money, Sam. You got to learn not to worry so much.”

  Vinda found Moose and Marsella at the top of the staircase in the convent. “Whadda we got?” he asked them.

  They waltzed him through a reenactment of the murder. When they finished, he walked down the hall and entered the bathroom. Blood still disfigured the white-tiled room. “The ME was excited about this one,” Marsella told the Whip. “During the course of the struggle, the stopper and a washcloth clogged the drain, catching the blood in the tub. The ME scooped up every drop.”

  She finally got her blood, Vinda thought, leaving the bathroom. “Where are Agueda and Hagstrom?” he asked Moose.

  “Interviewing the nuns,” Marsella replied.

  Looking down the hallway, Vinda saw Agueda and Hagstrom talking to a huddled group of frightened nuns. Agueda looked his way and gave a small wave of her hand, acknowledging him.

  Five minutes later, when they were finished interviewing the nuns, the two detectives came over to Vinda and the others. “Lou, can we speak to you a minute?” Hagstrom said, leading them out of earshot of the other cops on the scene. She threw back her shoulders, filling her blazer with her bosom, smiled, and confided, “Last night I had a tête-à-tête with our friend Otto Holman.”

  “You did what?” Vinda asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “We figured one woman playing a damsel in distress might loosen his macho tongue.”

  “Some damsel,” Marsella muttered.

  Vinda looked at Agueda. “Did you go along, too?”

  “Yes,” Agueda said.

  Shaking his head in mild approval, Vinda asked, “Did you find out anything?”

  “According to Holman, Dinny’O and Frank Griffin are the same person.”

  Vinda reeled back against the wall, clasping his hands behind his head and staring off down the corridor at one of the nuns who was weeping and being comforted by another one. “Were the sisters able to tell you anything?”