Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense

by Fynn Perry

  John’s thoughts were interrupted when Lazlo got up. The sounds of conversation from the men and women in the detective’s pen suddenly became vivid again as the initial stage of shock wore off and his senses returned. John followed Lazlo as he returned to the meeting room.

  He shook his head slowly at Jennifer. She knew then that it was bad news.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that Paul Hamilton is dead,” Lazlo said.

  “Oh, my God!” exploded from Jennifer’s mouth, and she burst into tears. “How did he die?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t reveal the details of an ongoing murder inquiry,” he said.

  “Murder? El Gordito murdered him, didn’t he?” Jennifer countered, trying to control her erratic breathing.

  “We don’t know that. It could be connected with the fact that he was caught trespassing by El Gordito’s men, or it could be completely unconnected. Paul made more than a few enemies in his career.” He paused. “Look, we can’t discuss anything more here at the station, and I need to look into a few things on this. Let’s meet up at my house at eleven tonight.” He took out a business card and scribbled something on the back with a pen. “Here’s my home address.”

  On the journey back to David Miller’s house, John couldn’t help but think about the journey that Hamilton’s spirit would now be taking. He pictured him going through the shock and confusion of being disembodied in a new and harrowing, parallel existence. He hoped, for Hamilton’s sake, that he had accepted his destiny and moved on. As an earthbound spirit, he would not only be lost, but also horribly disfigured.

  Nineteen

  Lazlo’s place of residence was a respectably maintained brownstone on 35th Street in Astoria.

  “Not bad for a detective,” Jennifer commented to John and her father as she pressed the doorbell.

  Lazlo opened the door and beckoned them in quickly. Seeing David and Jennifer take in the fine period furniture and antique pieces in the hallway, he explained: “My family had a thriving antique business back in the old country. I inherited this house when my father died.”

  “The old country being Hungary?” Jennifer asked, with the look of someone who had done their research.

  “Yes,” he replied, regarding her with a mixture of caution and surprise. “Lazlo actually comes from László, which has an extra ‘s.’ It’s a common first name in Hungary, and also used as a surname, though that’s less common. An ancestor probably anglicized it when arriving at Ellis Island or later on, hoping that it would make his new life in America easier.”

  They walked into a long, open-plan living space, where the faint smell of floral-scented beeswax and old lacquered wood was also present. Oil paintings of various sizes jostled for space on the walls above yet more antique furniture and an imposing, marble-framed fireplace. A large wooden dining table marked the boundary between the lounge area and a sleek modern kitchen. A map of Manhattan was stuck down to its surface and below the table, files lay stacked on the varnished floorboards.

  “I might have information relevant to what Hamilton uncovered at the fulfillment center. I got a late-night walk-in at the precinct some days ago and started doing some investigating of my own into the Spider’s Bite pills.” He recounted his meeting with Siobhan Kendrick and his follow-up on the case of her missing brother, Mark, the mysterious set of additional autopsy stitches and how his body had been cremated at a facility owned by El Gordito. He told them how, that same night, he had come across two of the Spider’s Bite pills at the scene of an assault. “I must have stumbled, quite by chance, upon two different types of the pill. They looked identical, but when I submitted them for testing, they gave dramatically different reactions in lab mice…” He paused, noting a glance of hopeful enthusiasm pass between father and daughter. “Both at first caused euphoria, but then one caused unbelievably violent behavior in the mice, followed by symptoms of brain-death. So that’s when I looked deeper into the case records to find any drug-related missing person cases—or deaths—that included a report of similar behavior.”

  Jennifer looked at John and then at David with an expression of relief that they were not alone in their investigations anymore.

  He led them over to the table. “I printed out a map showing the locations of all the nightclubs in Manhattan. They’re marked as red dots. I then marked the locations of DNA and Mayhem in a different color.”

  Next to the map were two large rolled-up sheets of semi-transparent drafting paper. Lazlo took one of them and unrolled it. An outline of Manhattan, the same size as that on the map, had been traced onto it, and there was a scattering of crosses. He placed it over the map, marrying up the borders of the paper with those of the map below.

  “Sometimes, the old ways are the best. No one can hack into this and see what we are doing,” Lazlo said, smiling, and John immediately remembered with curiosity The Accountant saying something similar about his ledgers.

  Lazlo clarified that the crosses on the overlay showed locations where the Spider’s Bite overdose victims with brain-death symptoms had been discovered. Symptoms he believed were attributable to the second type of pill he had found and had caused the horrific and violent behavior when tested on mice. “Given the fact that Kendrick had been to DNA, I focused on cases in Manhattan to see if there was any match with the locations of El Gordito’s clubs.” He paused. “And there is a pattern. The concentration of cases is highest around clubs in Midtown and Lower Manhattan, and on the West Side.” He pointed to those areas on the map. “But the density reaches its peak only in two places where the number of cases is so large that they form rings around two clubs.”

  “DNA and Mayhem,” Jennifer interrupted enthusiastically.

  “Yes, the thicker ring is around Mayhem. It’s a much bigger club than DNA. The case files show that when questioned by officers, the relatives and friends of the victims found in these rings confirmed that these young people were known to be going to visit the club they were found closest to. In many cases, the same friends also witnessed them at the clubs along with other clubgoers. Those witness accounts all focus on the victim’s violent behavior at the club and removal of the victim from the public area by club security. There are no sightings of the victim from that point until the discovery of the victim’s body.” Lazlo pointed to the areas within the rings of crosses. “As you can see, there have been no cases reported in the clubs themselves and very few in about a block’s radius around them.”

  “Logically, it’s impossible for there not to be any overdose cases in a nightclub,” said David.

  “Especially for a club like Mayhem. It’s one of the largest clubs in New York City and can hold two thousand people,” Jennifer confirmed.

  “I agree,” Lazlo said, raising an eyebrow at how well-informed Jennifer was. He unrolled the second sheet of drafting paper and moved it over the other sheet and the map below it. “This one relates to the missing person reports that I looked at.” He glanced at David again before proceeding. “I narrowed down the disappearances to those that had occurred in the last three months and which had taken place in similar circumstances and with similar behavior to Kendrick’s. I marked the locations of the last-reported sightings of each person.”

  Lazlo, Jennifer, and David lined up the borders of Manhattan on the map with the second overlay. With the exception of a few strays spaced far apart on the sheet, all the crosses were tightly packed into one location in the Meatpacking District and a smaller one in central Manhattan. As the final alignment of the borders took place, they could all see that the two concentrations of crosses on the top sheet settled dead center within the rings of crosses shown in the sheet below and over the locations of Mayhem and DNA.

  “So, all these people who are now missing,” David said, pointing at the clustered crosses over the two clubs, “were not only last seen at one of El Gordito’s clubs but exhibited the same behavior as the victims whose bodies were found in the streets?”

  “Yes,” Lazlo said. “The witn
ess accounts are similar. Club bouncers had to restrain and remove each of them for aggressive behavior.”

  “So, in every single case the bouncers were the last people to see the victims either alive or before they went missing.”

  “That’s correct, and statements were taken from the bouncers and the club managers. They all stated that club policy had been followed. In fact, they all said the same thing. I quote: ‘The use of a rear exit from the club, which is only accessible by staff, to expel any guest behaving badly is to save both the guest’s and the club’s embarrassment.’”

  “Of course, that is the only reason!” Jennifer snickered.

  “I share your skepticism,” Lazlo said. “Faced with a victim displaying brain-death symptoms while still in the club, El Gordito’s men would almost certainly not call the authorities. El Gordito hates any bad publicity when it comes to his clubs. Dumping a body to avoid an inquiry at his club is exactly what he is capable of.” He took a deep breath. “But unfortunately, there is no evidence to support that is what happened. The fact that a number of victims who had been to his clubs were found, and at a short distance away from his clubs––in random backstreet locations, which they could have easily wandered into––does on the surface seem to align with the statements of the club staff that the victims were still alive when they were thrown out.” He paused for a moment. “That’s not to say I have any doubts that El Gordito is behind the bodies being dumped and the disappearances. My experience with trying to find Mark Kendrick has convinced me of that.”

  “Do you think that Kendrick’s body might have originally been taken to an entirely different location along with the other victims who were thought to have gone missing?” suggested Jennifer. She hoped Lazlo had considered that possibility and by doing so had also wondered what would determine El Gordito’s choice of whether a victim’s body would be left out in the open to be discovered or taken away to give the impression of the victim disappearing.

  Lazlo didn’t answer straightaway; her question seemed to have triggered the desired thought process within him. “You said ‘taken to another location’ and ‘not dumped at another location,’ ” he finally said. It was clearly meant as a statement, not a question. “I hadn’t thought of it before but now I’m wondering how El Gordito still had access to Kendrick’s body two days after Kendrick was last seen at DNA? I mean if the idea was to make it look like he and the others had gone missing, El Gordito would have immediately burned their bodies or destroyed them some other way. He wouldn’t store them and risk them being found.”

  “Did you compare the profiles of the missing victims against those of the victims found around the clubs?” offered Jennifer.

  This time Lazlo answered without any delay. “The ones he left to be discovered at both locations all came from rich or wealthy families. People of money and power. And the victims that went missing have working- or middle-class backgrounds. They went into the NYPD’s Missing Persons Database, along with thousands of other unrelated cases, only after forty-eight hours. As you know, the police don’t consider someone missing before then,” he said.

  “And their families would have no power or money to influence the police to prioritize their cases and start looking before forty-eight hours,” suggested Jennifer.

  “So, the victims that El Gordito chose to make appear as if they have gone missing, were the right ones if he had a use for them. But what use? How could he profit from them?” Lazlo asked thoughtfully. “I suppose if the organs were in good condition, then organ harvesting could be a possibility. It’s highly profitable but that would be a complete departure from El Gordito’s business model. As far as we know, he has always been strictly into narcotic trafficking and made a point of keeping to what he knows best.”

  David and Jennifer said nothing and just looked at each other, encouraged by how effortlessly Lazlo had reached that conclusion.

  “Just let the pieces fall in place. He’ll get there,” advised John in a confident tone that only Jennifer could hear.

  “One more thing,” Lazlo offered. “When the composition of the two pills was analyzed, in one of them remarkably pure cocaine and heroin were found to be the only ingredients. The other also contained heroin, but of poorer quality, and no cocaine was present. There were, however, additional ingredients. One was a synthesized version of PCP, a drug that causes violent, paranoid behavior, and the second was a synthesized pharmaceutical drug which, in the right doses, can cause brain-death-type symptoms.”

  “That second pill could have been made from the earlier experimental batch the guard spoke to the bioscientist about,” John whispered to Jennifer, while Lazlo paused.

  She was unable to respond before the detective resumed talking. “The thing is, my guy said the heroin and cocaine were pure in the pill where they were combined, without any trace of the chemicals normally used to refine the raw plant ingredients. So pure, in fact, that he believes that they must have been produced by some radical new method––”

  David motioned to his daughter to give Lazlo the two printouts she had prepared. “We did some research and found news articles which state that in the future, it’ll be possible to genetically engineer strains of yeast capable of churning out tons of any compound normally derived from plants, including those which are used in the drug industries, both legal and illegal. That means also heroin and cocaine.”

  Lazlo took the printouts and pored over them. “You’re kidding me! Drugs will be able to be made like beer using just yeast?” he said, looking at the first article. “Hell! We’ll have crackheads in every household in America!”

  “Only if the specifically modified strains capable of doing so were ever to become widely available. But right now, only one man has come close to genetically engineering such a yeast. Look at the second article.” David motioned with his hand. “It’s about a kidnapped scientist named Yilmaz who was making great strides in making a low-yielding, morphine-making strain of yeast. “Suppose Yilmaz has perfected the process and is working for El Gordito? That could explain the purity of the heroin and cocaine, couldn’t it?”

  Lazlo cursed, swelling with anger. “If this is true, El Gordito is about to take over the drug market with a limitless supply! That would cut out everyone else, including the Mexican cartel he buys from.” He took a few breaths and calmed down. “You’re going to think I’m paranoid, but with El Gordito, you can’t be paranoid enough. Follow me, if you would.” Lazlo led them back to the hallway of his home. Standing in front of a full-length mirror, he pressed the surface and it opened like a door, the frame remaining on the wall. “I just have to keep wiping away the handprints,” he joked. “It’s one-way glass so I can see out from the room, but nobody can see in, just like the interview rooms at the station.”

  Lazlo walked in, but Jennifer and David hesitated. John went in regardless

  “It’s OK, come in!” John announced.

  The room was around eight by eight feet and had no window. Two filing cabinets stood in the corner, and there was a chair and a small desk with a lamp, but what stood out were the large bulletin boards fixed to the walls. Originally, perhaps, the room had meant to be a closet or a second bathroom but it now seemed to be some kind of mini war room. And inside it held the stereotypical ‘Detective’s Crazy Wall’: a map of New York and neighboring states punctured with yellow and red pins. Most pins were connected by red string to articles, photographs or scribbled notes attached around the map’s edges. A second bulletin board showed an organization chart with a headshot photograph of El Gordito at the top of the pyramid. Beneath him were about ten more headshots of grim-faced, Hispanic-looking men in decreasing order of importance.

  “I know what you’re thinking—that you’ve walked into a TV series, but these things really help to get a full picture,” he said with a grin. “The red pins are the locations of murders which, we suspect, were sanctioned by El Gordito, but couldn’t be proved as such.” He pointed to the yellow pins. “These a
re the locations of drug busts where the drugs seized must have belonged to El Gordito but could not legally be connected to him. He uses a wide net of contractors, all of them too scared to say anything.”

  Visible only to Jennifer, John was pointing to a pin marking the location of the hospital. “Hargreave Merciful! That’s the name of the hospital with the harvesting going on in the basement,” he advised.

  Jennifer looked more closely. The pin marking the location of the hospital was connected by threads to several documents. One of them was a printout of a news report from the web regarding the suspension of corruption charges brought against a senator and a construction permit official. The charges were in relation to a permit allowing for the conversion of underground storage space at the private hospital. It was to be turned into a medical research facility to be operated by an undisclosed investor. The investor had allegedly made a substantial monetary contribution to the senator’s campaign.

  Jennifer pointed to the article. “This article about the permit for the medical center has nothing to do with a drug bust or any murders, does it?”

  “No, but we were sure that as many as fourteen doctors working at the hospital were involved in a ‘pill mill’-type operation. That’s where a doctor is paid to give out prescriptions for addictive pain medication like opioids to fake patients who then buy the drugs and sell them on the black market for profit. We believed El Gordito was behind it and we would have exposed his operation had the fake patients suddenly not stopped appearing just prior to when the scandal of the permit for the medical center occurred. The pill-mill never resumed after that. I pinned the article because of the coincidental timing and because it was rumored that the senator in question had links to organized crime. Naturally, I thought of El Gordito.”

  “And the name of the investor in the medical research center is still unknown?”

  Lazlo nodded instead. “As far as I am aware,” he confirmed.