by Jay Deb
“Police? You must be joking.”
“I am not joking, Max. You left the agency on your own volition a long time ago, and now I have no relationship with you. I won’t be able to provide any kind of help,” Lazarus said and turned his face away.
Doerr knew the conversation was nearing its end. “Come on, Lazarus, help me. I worked for you – and the agency – for thirteen years. I risked my life to bring down those bad guys. You gotta help me track down Samuel and see what he was up to.”
“First of all, you did not work for me for thirteen years. Maybe you did for the agency, but not me. And secondly, it would be illegal for me to help you in any way.”
“Illegal? Come on!”
“Listen, Max, there’s nothing I can do for you,” Lazarus said with a touch of anger and shook his head. “How did you get in here, anyway?”
Doerr stood up and walked out without answering. He had worked for Lazarus for so many years, and this was what he got in return. He was livid that he had come to Lazarus, who was his last chance, and had been rebuffed like a street dog. Now he could do only one thing – take matters into his own hands.
He thought of calling Gayle but decided not to. He didn’t want to pass his pain to the person he loved most. He went back to his car and turned the music system to some dance music and drove to the highway. But it didn’t calm him, so he headed for the nearest gas station to pick up a pack of Marlboro.
Chapter 9
Doerr drove at more than eighty miles an hour on Highway I-95 South. He knew that Samuel had lived in an old apartment in Richmond, and that was where Doerr was headed. Samuel might have moved out, but it was worth a shot.
When he reached the Green Knoll apartment complex in Richmond, it was 3 p.m. The complex must have had at least a hundred units. The connecting roads were empty. Doerr passed the kids’ playground that had a seesaw and a slide, but no kids were playing there. He drove on and passed two deep brown painted buildings, and then he stopped at the third one. Unit 2C, where Samuel used to live, was on the second floor. Doerr got out of the car, glanced at the purple daisies on the ground, and headed for the stairs.
He went upstairs and wiggled the doorknob of apartment 2C. It was locked. Samuel might be out. He looked for a spare key under the doormat but found nothing. He went back downstairs and walked through the dingy hallway to the other side of the building. Now the building was on his right, and the perfectly mowed green pasture lay to his left. The apartment had a balcony; nobody was around, and Doerr started thinking about getting upstairs to check out Samuel’s apartment, to see if he could get a clue about where to find him. He looked at the drainpipe, but it looked much too light to bear his weight.
He walked around to find something he could use to climb. At the end of the building he saw a long wooden log with a metal prong attached.
Perfect, he thought. He brought it back underneath the unit, attaching the prong to the railing of the balcony above. He started climbing. The thick wooden log cracked but held his weight. As he climbed, he felt the old pain in his hip; he ignored it, and soon, he was standing in front of the glass back door of apartment 2C.
He tried to peek inside, but everything looked dark. He took his shirt off and wrapped it around his sweaty right elbow; turning around and placing his back to the door, he raised his arm and smashed through the glass with his elbow. The door cracked, but the glass did not shatter. One more whack was all he needed to smash the door enough for him to carefully insert his hand and unlock the latch.
He stepped inside but could see no one. He turned the lights on and heard some noise coming from the bedroom. He instantly became more alert and picked up the long glass vase that sat on the corner table, ready to hit, in case someone came out and attacked him. He tiptoed to the bedroom door and held his breath. A black and white cat sat on the bed, looking at him, giving the impression it was about to pounce. Ignoring it, he walked inside. He saw a large, framed photo of a young couple, and the man looked nothing like Samuel.
Doerr quickly moved back to the living room and saw a stack of mail in the center of the coffee table. The name on the first envelope was Jennifer Statenburg; another envelope showed Michael Statenburg. Some had both names. He realized Samuel must have moved out.
Soon, Doerr was back on the highway, this time driving north, heading home to New York. The drive was long and boring. Traffic was heavy, so he took a break at six p.m. at a highway rest area. When he set off again, the traffic had eased but only a little bit.
He reached his apartment late in the evening. After a quick cold shower to wash away the stress of the day, he ate a light dinner of a tuna sandwich with two pickles. He flopped down on the bed afterwards, but wasn’t able to sleep. The memory of his painful loss accompanied him no matter how hard he tried to remove it from his brain. Images of how Billy might have fought for his life in that very apartment played in his mind.
He stood up, went to the medicine cabinet and popped two sleeping pills.
It wasn’t enough to put him to sleep. An hour later, he left the building, deciding to go for a walk. It was after one a.m., and the street was empty – no cars, no pedestrians. He strolled ten blocks and saw a NYPD police car slow down as it passed him, but then it moved on.
He took a right turn at the next junction. He was going to take another turn a few blocks later and circle back to his apartment. There was no noise except for the occasional siren of a police car or an ambulance vehicle in the distance. He walked past the next junction quickly, passing a few houses and a narrow alleyway. While passing, he turned his head toward the alley.
He thought he saw a man crouch down, but he wasn’t sure, and he continued to walk. He heard a woman’s voice, a grunt, more like a scream. He stopped walking and watched the next signal turn green from red, and then he heard it again – a call for help. He thought for a second. Should I just keep walking?
He turned. When he reached the mouth of the alley, he heard it again. It was a woman desperately seeking help, being held down by a man.
Doerr ran over and saw immediately what was going on. The man had his jeans pulled down to his knees, and the woman was on the ground beneath him. Her leather jacket lay nearby, and her shirt was torn. Doerr had no doubt what the man was about to do to the woman: throughout the ages bad men had done this, and the weaker sex suffered.
“Please help,” the woman cried.
Doerr pulled the man up by his shirt collar and made him stand straight before punching him in the face. The man was about five feet eight and perhaps weighed in at around a hundred and sixty pounds.
Blood spurted from the man’s nose, and the woman scrambled to her feet, grabbing her jacket and clutching it about herself.
The man wiped his face with his left palm and took a look at it. He turned his head left and then right, obviously riled by the sight of his own blood. He gave Doerr a piercing look, and then the man put his hand in his jacket pocket and withdrew a gun. To Doerr, it looked like a 9mm pistol. The woman put her hands to her face, fearful of what would happen next.
“Now you see,” the man said angrily and pointed the gun at Doerr’s head and took a few steps toward him.
Doerr straightened up and was tense at first. Then he noticed how the man was holding the firearm, cocked to the side, barrel slanted toward the ground. Instantly, he realized that the man was no pro. Doerr’s nerves calmed. He knew that a gun should be pointed at the enemy’s head, not at anything else.
“Now what?” The man took one step back and shook his gun. “Are you going to leave or not?”
Doerr raised his hands, “Okay. I’ll leave, but she’s leaving too.” He pointed to the woman.
“No way!” The man was stepping forward again. “She’s my bitch. Who the hell are you?”
Doerr lowered his eyes, and the man continued to move forward. Doerr wanted to give the impression that he wasn’t watching the gun anymore, but he kept an eye on the man’s finger over the trigger, obliquely.
When the man was close enough, Doerr made his move. He swung his right hand, which landed on the man’s wrist like a heavy ax. The gun fell from his grasp, and Doerr grabbed the man by his long hair and threw him to the ground, everything happening in a fraction of a second.
Doerr immediately crouched down over the man’s body, pinning him to the floor with his right elbow on the man’s throat.
The woman, who looked Latino to Doerr, was crying in relief. “Thank you so much.”
“What were you doing here at this hour?” Doerr asked.
“I was going home from work – at the hospital a couple of blocks over – and that guy dragged me here.” She pointed to the would-be rapist. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“It’s okay. Now go,” Doerr said and loosened the pressure of his elbow on the man’s throat, letting him breathe.
Doerr watched the woman hurry away, taking a left turn out of the alley and disappearing from view. Doerr kept the man pinned down for a few more minutes and then said, “Stay down, and I won’t kill you.”
Doerr stood up and retrieved the gun. It was a 9mm Colt. He took the six-bullet magazine out and checked it before returning it to the gun.
He leveled the gun at the man, who froze. “Get the hell out of here.”
The man looked at Doerr, and then he backed away, slowly at first, and then breaking into a run.
Doerr tucked the gun in his pocket and then walked back to his apartment.
He woke up at eleven a.m. the next morning, when most New Yorkers were at work or school. He grabbed his iPhone and called Gayle. It went straight to voicemail, and he left a message, asking her to call back immediately. Living all by himself was becoming too much to bear, and he wanted her back. While he waited, he decided to visit the library.
He received Gayle’s call in the afternoon, and she agreed to come home after work. On his way back from the library, Doerr realized that the fridge in the apartment was nearly empty, so he picked up four bags of groceries before returning to his apartment and waiting for Gayle.
When Gayle got home, they caught up for a while, chatting over a drink on the sofa, and then they headed for the bedroom, where they made passionate love.
Earlier, over the phone, Doerr had told her about rejoining the agency and the two jobs he had done overseas for Samuel. He could not tell her that he had killed a very important man and the FBI would be looking for him, the way a thirsty man looks for water in a desert.
Gayle took a bath and then cooked pasta with salmon and some mashed potatoes. After a long time, Doerr enjoyed a home-cooked dinner with her, so much so that he almost forgot his troubles. The tension in his mind was gone, and he laughed.
But the stress came flooding back when they turned on the TV. On CNN, Doerr saw a woman’s face that looked familiar. But he could not put a name to her.
He turned up the volume. The newswoman kept talking, “Irene Clark, thirty-two, was found dead when police broke into her apartment. Her mother had raised the alarm after Irene failed to return her calls. The slain woman was living alone, in the Fifth Avenue area, after separating from her rich husband. A divorce case was going on in the New York City Civil Court.”
Gayle said something, but Doerr shushed her. “Wait.”
“There are speculations that the husband is somehow behind this.” The newswoman continued. “But police say they have uncovered no evidence so far to back that theory. They found three guns and a long-range rifle in her apartment.”
Doerr froze as he saw a shot of the building on the TV. It was the same building where Samuel had dragged him to take that shot. Now he remembered why the woman looked so familiar. He had seen Irene’s picture on Samuel’s phone and in a large, framed photograph in the condo. In the picture, she had worn a whitish dress and a diamond broche that had held the dress together, a Mona Lisa-like smile on her face.
Doerr stood up and started pacing. He had no doubt about who killed the woman.
Samuel, Samuel, Samuel – eliminating witnesses. That’s what he is doing.
“What’s wrong, Max?” Gayle asked.
“You see what’s going on,” Doerr stood in front of her and pointed to the TV. “Helpless people are being murdered in the city every day.”
“But we live in New York.” She stood up and faced him. “It happens here all the time.”
“But this? This…” Doerr stopped in the middle of the sentence. He wished he could tell everything to his wife. That he was the one who had taken a shot with the M107 rifle from the condo they were just showing on the TV. He wished he could tell her everything, someday.
FBI SPECIAL AGENT Josh Miller was sweating in his chair, and he tried to loosen his black tie. His boss sat across the table. Speculations about who killed the DEA administrator and Irene Clark were splattered all over the New York Times, other newspapers and the Internet, and Miller had no clue about who had killed them.
Miller had been investigating the murder of the DEA man for over a month and had interviewed more than a hundred people. He had access to the best forensic experts in the country and was backed up by a team of twenty FBI special agents.
“Do you have a name?” O’Brien asked and gave him a look that was typical of a school teacher encountering a student giving a lame excuse for unfinished homework.
“Not yet.” Miller sighed and continued in an unsteady tone. “We found the murder weapon for Clark’s death. The bullet in her head matched the gun found in her apartment. Gunpowder residue was found on her fingers. There was a M107 rifle in her apartment, which matched the bullet fragments found in the DEA administrator’s body. There were several other guns found in her apartment, all of which had only her fingerprints on them. It looks like she was a gun enthusiast. We talked to her estranged husband, who says she was never into guns.”
“Maybe she picked up the hobby recently,” O’Brien adjusted his tie, “to avoid boredom, or for protection, or maybe both, who knows.” He swung his hand.
“Possible, but it’s hard to see her committing suicide. She was doing well by herself. Half of her husband’s ten million dollars was about to fall into her lap. Her husband is the only one who benefits from her death.”
“I see your point.” O’Brien moved his head back and forth, thinking hard. “It could be her, or her husband, or maybe a third suspect who we know nothing about right now.”
Miller nodded.
“And we may never know. I say let’s go to Wall Street,” O’Brien said with a tone of finality, “and talk to the husband.”
“I’m quite positive,” Miller stood up, “that the husband is involved in all this, in one way or the other.”
Chapter 10
SAMUEL WAS DRIVING down Highway 85 in Atlanta during rush hour, heading for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. He had a Paris flight to catch.
He had planned to take the trip with Irene. But now, he was going to the City of Love with her blood on his hands.
Irene had been a good girl. To Samuel, good meant useful, and he knew how to use people – men or women. But Irene was different. Samuel had almost fallen in love with her. He had already made plans about how to get rid of Irene’s rich, Wall Street husband. A hit by a cabbie with a fictitious license plate, or a late night mugging gone wrong – Samuel just had to plot out a few more details. He knew he was good at hatching plans.
But then that stratagem had not even been necessary.
The murder of the DEA administrator in the park had made Irene ask more questions than he was prepared to answer.
Were you in my condo the day the DEA administrator was killed? Did you hear the gunshot? I think someone was in my condo. Do you have any idea who it could be?
Samuel did not like being asked questions and much less by a woman.
Does she suspect I have anything to do with the murder? Samuel had wondered.
Even if she did, it didn’t really matter – her life would end; Samuel had decided.
Killin
g Irene was a cakewalk. A pull on a silenced Glock’s trigger was all that was needed.
The post-murder cleanup was harder. Wiping the floor, placing the gun to make it look like a suicide, acid-burning the serial numbers from the firearms – it was a lot of work.
Leaving the long-range rifle, the one that Doerr had used to kill the DEA Administrator, in her condo had been a marvelous idea. The FBI would be scratching their heads like six-year-old boys facing a hard riddle.
Samuel chuckled as his SUV crawled toward the airport parking lot. He cursed the Atlanta traffic, its citizens, and the entire city.
When Samuel entered the international terminal at the airport, it was barely twenty-five minutes from his flight time. If he missed his plane, it would have been a first in his life, but he made the flight.
SAMUEL REACHED CHARLES-de-Gaulle Airport early in the morning. To save money, he usually stayed at a three-star hotel whenever he visited Paris. But this time he felt good about himself and checked into the Carlton Ritz.
His cab crawled through the heavy morning traffic, and he reached the hotel at eight. After a shower, a couple of hours’ sleep and heavy lunch of steak, he felt lethargic. He went down to the hotel bar and gulped down two large glasses of wine, hoping to find a woman to keep him occupied. But he was out of luck. He thought of Irene, who he had met a year back, in a New York single’s bar.
It had barely been two weeks since he had killed her.
He smoked a cigar and returned to his room. He dialed a number for an escort service that he had been given furtively by the concierge. Within an hour, there was a knock on his door. Samuel opened it and was disappointed by the plump woman who stood in front of him. One of his skills was that he could tell a woman’s age, even if she wore an inch of lipstick and a hundred layers of makeup on her face.
The woman looked to be around forty-seven, to Samuel. But he didn’t have enough energy to send her back and call for another one.