by Tom Barber
As they entered the heart of the building, Archer saw the families gathered in the detective pool straight ahead, a pair of officers talking with them and offering them some iced pastries from a box. They all looked shell-shocked after the events of the night but at least in here they knew they were safe.
Observing the group, Archer shook his head.
‘What the hell is going on? Why go after them?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Marquez replied, motioning upstairs to the Conference Rooms which the detective teams used. ‘We’re waiting for you; Shepherd sent me down. They’re starting in one minute.’
As Marquez spoke, Isabel suddenly appeared from a side room with a female detective and saw Archer. Her face lit up and she immediately ran over, Archer kneeling down as she hugged him, catching his breath as she threw herself against the cut across his chest.
With the girl clinging to him and not letting go any time soon, he looked up at Marquez and April.
‘Better make that two.’
*
The mood on the lower level of the Bureau with the family members might have been one of delayed shock, but upstairs in the Conference Room it was tense and focused. After reassuring Isabel and leaving her with Josh’s eldest son, Archer walked upstairs and joined the others, immediately registering the change in atmosphere as he entered the room. Hendricks was standing on the right, Shepherd straight ahead, April sitting on the left side of the central table and looking awkward, an NYPD navy-blue jacket draped around her shoulders.
Having been momentarily delayed, Marquez entered the room behind Archer, easing the door shut behind her, the last member to arrive apart from Josh.
‘Michelle’s in surgery,’ she said. ‘I also called the other hospital; the gunman’s being operated on right now.’
‘Has he said anything yet?’ Hendricks asked.
‘No chance. They had to put him under and get to work immediately. If they didn’t, he wasn’t gonna survive long enough to answer any questions. The shotgun blast did some major damage; he still might not make it.’
‘Looks like we’re going to have to figure out who he is and who his friends were ourselves,’ Shepherd said. He turned to Ethan. ‘Any results yet?’
‘Not yet. None of them were carrying ID, so we’re working from face and physical stat searches but so far, no matches. None of them have any tattoos or distinguishing marks which I could search in the databases. A few scars, but nothing major.’
‘Three of them are dead and one’s unconscious,’ Hendricks said. ‘We can get their prints.’
‘CSU tried, but each guy had taken down the end pads on their fingers,’ Ethan replied.
‘What?’ Marquez said.
‘They don’t have prints; they burned them off with acid. And no records are coming up anywhere. I’ve tried everything. Shit, they didn’t even show up in the DMV.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll just have to hope the wounded man makes it through surgery and we can get him to talk.’
He tapped some keys and photos of four men appeared on the screen; three were close-up crime scene captures, the dead men lying on the Hendricks’ front lawn, and the fourth was the man currently being operated on, someone having taken his mug-shot on the way to the hospital, the white stretcher he was strapped to visible under his head.
All four were dark-haired, hard-faced men with similar facial characteristics implying the same ethnicity, possibly European, but a specific nationality or gang was impossible to identify.
‘Anyone recognise them?’ Shepherd asked the room.
No-one replied.
‘Rubbed down finger prints. No tattoos. Silenced weapons with the serial numbers burnt off. A car with fake plates. These guys aren’t amateurs.’
As Shepherd spoke Archer studied the two separate, smaller screens below the large electronic plasma screen. The left screen was dedicated to the investigation into Leann Casey’s death. Underneath her mug-shot and several from the scene of the shooting, were DMV photos of two men. Both were brown-skinned and dark-eyed, the one on the left bulky with a fat face, curly unkempt hair and the other leaner with hollow eyes, short hair and a sour expression. Carlos Goya and Alex Santiago were the names on the licenses. Archer recognised Goya’s eyes instantly; he was definitely the guy from the parking lot four weeks ago.
‘What happened at the motel in Scranton?’ Archer asked. ‘We split before they called back.’
‘SWAT found an empty room, no Carlos Goya and traces of a lye solution in the tub that was a perfect match for the shit we found Santiago soaking in,’ Shepherd said. ‘Looks like he went the same way as his friend.’
No-one said anything; it was hardly a moment for celebration. Suddenly the case wasn’t as straightforward as just finding Leann’s killers. Three new suspects had suddenly appeared on the scene, Goya and Santiago being wasted by three people whose motives were still a mystery, one homicide leading to two more.
And on top of that, a determined attempt had been made to wipe out the families of each detective in the room. Now he’d had time to think, the more Archer thought about how fast those attacks had happened after he killed Lister, the more obvious the reason seemed.
‘All this in the same night,’ he said. ‘We start digging around then stumble on our three friends disposing of Santiago. Lister goes down and then these sudden moves on our families? There’s no way that’s a coincidence.’
‘It could be,’ Ethan said. ‘Maybe someone else is targeting your team and they just happened to hit on the same night.’
‘Then why was Jake’s address on the list?’ Shepherd replied. ‘He runs his own squad. He’s only been working with us tonight.’
Ethan fell silent.
Shepherd had a point.
‘It’s connected,’ Marquez said, agreeing with Archer and Shepherd. ‘We start asking questions, follow up on some leads, Lister dies and less than thirty minutes later a team of armed gunmen are paying our families a visit? C’mon; I’m all for coincidence, but that’s just way too convenient.’
‘So whoever these men are, how did they get your details?’ Ethan asked. ‘That information is restricted. Who the hell gave it to them?’
‘Anyone with Department access,’ Marquez said. ‘It came via cell phone message. The team downstairs tried to trace the origin number but it was from a disposable that’s going straight to voicemail. It’ll have been ditched by now.’
Looking at her for a moment, Shepherd turned, focusing on the investigation screens.
‘We need to rearrange this,’ he said. ‘Ethan, put our three amateur chemists on the main screen.’
Seconds later Nina Lister’s police mug-shot and close-up CCTV pulls of the two men Archer had fought in the bar and Park appeared, the images taken from a street camera covering the Park entrance. It showed each man’s face but the shots were grainy and hard to make out, but at least they were a start. One big, one slighter, the big guy well over two hundred pounds, his partner much smaller whose junkyard dog’s aggression was clear even from the poor quality shot as he and his companion stalked after Archer and April.
‘They showed up to the bar in a black van which CSU is working over,’ Ethan said. ‘So far they haven’t found a single print inside, just a load of empty canisters with traces of the lye solution, a jet gun with a water barrel and spare sets of overalls, gloves, gas masks and magazines for silenced weapons.’
‘Tell them to keep combing that thing,’ Hendricks said. ‘Tear it apart. After what we saw in that bath, we need an ID on these two.’
Shepherd nodded. ‘Bring up the four gunmen from the house calls underneath.’
Ethan complied, forming two lines, one under the other; Lister and her two friends, then the four anonymous gunmen.
‘Two very separate groups,’ Shepherd said. ‘But somehow linked.’
He tapped the smaller screen on the right.
‘Lastly; victims here.’
Ethan brought up Goya
and Santiago’s mug-shots then leant back from his computer.
‘Wait,’ Archer said. ‘You’re missing two.’
‘Who?’ Hendricks asked.
‘Valdez and Carvalho. They were framed, the murder weapon left at the scene, but made to look as if one shot his buddy then killed himself.’
‘Yeah, but surely Goya and Santiago must have done that.’
‘Valdez and his pal died early this week. Goya’s been in Scranton for nine days and Santiago was in jail.’
There was silence as everyone digested that. Realising Archer was right, Ethan hit a few keys and the two men’s photos joined Goya and Santiago’s.
‘But why frame two men to keep the heat off Goya and Santiago then kill them too?’ he said.
‘To buy Lister and her two friends time to find and get rid of Carlos and Alex before we realised they were involved,’ Marquez finished. ‘For some reason, they didn’t want us talking to them.’
There was a pause as everyone examined the three screens.
‘You think they’re all part of the same crew then?’ Ethan suggested, looking at the two lines of suspects. ‘The visits to your homes were attempted payback?’
‘Or something to keep us occupied and off their tails,’ Archer replied, looking at his watch. ‘It’s been two hours since Lister was shot, but this is the first chance we’ve had to sit down and really take a look at this thing. All the home attacks kept us busy and bought the two men extra time.’
‘To do what?’ Ethan asked.
‘Find me,’ April said nervously, the first time she’d spoken.
Standing by the screens, Shepherd turned his attention to her.
‘Do you recognise her?’ he asked, pointing at Lister’s photo. ‘Or the two men?’
‘Never seen them before.’
‘Any idea why they’d be so invested in finding you?’
‘None.’
‘How long have you been hiding?’
‘Since this afternoon.’
‘Why do you think these men were trying to find you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So why’d you run?’ Hendricks asked, confused. ‘How’d you know?’
She tried to speak but hesitated, looking uncertainly around the room.
‘I, um. I…’
She trailed off, clearly overwhelmed.
‘Start from the beginning,’ Archer said quietly, sitting beside her. ‘Tell us what’s going on. We’re here to help.’
Turning, she looked at him for a long moment. Then she sighed.
‘OK.’
TWENTY NINE
‘I started doing this three years ago,’ she explained. She went to continue but then stopped almost as soon as she’d started, looking at the police detectives surrounding her, clearly unnerved by sitting in a room full of cops. ‘I’m not sure if I should be telling you guys this.’
‘You won’t get into trouble,’ Shepherd said. ‘You have my word.’
Glancing at Archer for reassurance, he nodded and she continued.
‘I’m from Philadelphia. Used to live there with my mother. I started hanging out with the wrong crowd after school, thinking I was cool, all that kind of stupid shit.’
She paused.
‘One night at a party, I met some guy in his twenties who I’d never seen before. We hit it off and started seeing each other. He told me he was only around for a few weeks, but that I should ditch school and go back to New York with him. At first I thought he was joking but he kept on. A few days later I had a huge fight with my mother and packed my bags. My boyfriend picked me up and we came here to New York, a week before my seventeenth birthday.’
She picked up her coffee but didn’t drink, clutching the mug tightly. Around her, the room was silent.
‘He told me he had a big place in Chelsea but when we arrived I saw three other girls lived there as well. I was surprised, but how naïve can you be, right? He told me that I couldn’t stay there for free and that I needed to help out with rent and living expenses. New York’s an expensive city, he said. It’s the way it gets done here.’
No one else in the room said anything.
They all knew where this was going.
‘I was pretty scared but hid it, wanting to be cool. Didn’t want the others to laugh at me; stupid naïve kid from Philly, you know? I figured I’d get a job bussing tables or something. But that first night the girls left the apartment and I hung out with my boyfriend and two of his friends. We drank a load of booze.’
She hesitated. Closed her eyes.
‘My boyfriend then told me I should screw the two guys. He said he was into it, and he’d like to watch. I said no. He kept asking. I kept saying no.’
‘What happened?’ Marquez asked quietly.
‘His two friends raped me, one after the other. It was the first time I’d ever had sex. Once they left, my boyfriend told me it was my fault. If you want to stay here, you need to do exactly what I say. That’s what he told me; I can remember it word for word.’
She didn’t lift her eyes from the table.
‘The next morning he said I was going out to work with the other girls who lived in the apartment. He took the money I’d brought with me. When I realised what he wanted me to do, he said that if I went to the cops his two friends would come back for a second slice. And they wouldn’t be so nice next time.’
She hesitated, her voice starting to shake slightly as she fought to get the words out.
‘It was like a bad dream, you know? That first day I managed to avoid anyone who approached, gross men who the other girls took. Then my boyfriend appeared and said I had to get into the next car or he’d call his two friends.’
Tears welled in her eyes.
‘I made seventy bucks. Lucky me.’
Silence.
‘When I got back he beat the shit out of me in front of the other girls. He told me if I ever came back again with so little money he’d kill me. It turned out he was running ten other girls, most of them suckered in like me.’
‘What happened to this guy?’ Hendricks asked quietly. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive. He got killed in the Bronx at the end of last year just after getting out of prison for assault. But before he went inside, myself, Kelly and Cece were passed over to two of his friends on a loan; some sort of payback for a deal they had going. They were the two guys who’d given me my welcome party my first night.’
She looked up at the victims screen.
‘Carlos Goya and Alex Santiago.’
‘At first Carlos and Alex ran the same kind of operation but after a few months, it suddenly changed,’ she continued. ‘They gave us some money and told us to fix ourselves up, then made us start working uptown on the Upper West and East Side where we pulled wealthier clients, going for bigger paydays rather than the street level stuff.’
‘How long have you been working for them?’ Shepherd asked.
‘Since November, last year. Eleven months.’
‘When your old pimp died, you couldn’t leave?’ Marquez asked.
‘And do what?’ April asked with a short laugh. ‘Go where? I’ve got no qualifications, no friends other than the other girls. I haven’t spoken to my mother in three years. She’d hardly want me back now, would she?’
She paused.
‘Instead of the corner, we were sent out to meet professional men, you know, like businessmen, guys with money. We were told to keep the curtains open in the hotel rooms they booked for us. Goya and Santiago had it under tight control; we were all convinced they were photographing the clients.’
‘Blackmail,’ Archer said.
She nodded. ‘I know for sure that they worked a couple of guys. One was my client, a judge. We all talked about it, me and the other girls. There were twelve of us, brought in by Goya and Santiago from around the city. That was when I met Leann.’
‘You’d never seen her before?�
�� Archer asked.
‘No. She was a nice kid; quiet as a mouse, really pretty. God only knows how or why she ended up turning tricks; she wasn’t the type. She moved here recently; I used to ask how the hell she got into this shit, but she never said.’
‘Leann’s file said she was pulling in five grand a night,’ Shepherd said.
April nodded. ‘At least. We all were. Multiply that by twelve, with us working five or six days a week, and you can figure it out. We were making a killing for those bastards, not to mention the blackmail rackets we figured Goya and Santiago were involved in.’
‘Didn’t the move uptown mean you were on someone else’s turf?’ Marquez asked.
‘The Upper West and East Side are easy pickings; there are hardly any street-gangs, loads of wealthy guys with secret lives their wives don’t know about or pretend not to. Most of the competition is located on Midtown West near tourist-town.’
‘You were never busted by cops?’ Shepherd asked.
‘Leann was, but that was a one-off; Vice were tailing a client of hers for different reasons and she walked right into a sting not meant for her. Did three months and paid a five hundred buck fine. Apart from that incident, we all blended right in. That was part of their business plan and the change I mentioned. Carlos and Alex insisted they didn’t want cheap-looking trash on their roster. They told us we’d been chosen because we looked classy and if we wore expensive clothes they could charge a hell of a lot more for us. We were given money to buy nicer stuff; with our hair fixed up, manicures, expensive make-up and all, we looked just the same as every other young woman in that part of town. A lot better, in most cases. ’
‘So why the hell did Carlos kill Leann last month?’ Archer asked. ‘From the sounds of it, you and the other girls were giving him and Santiago a great lifestyle.’
April paused. ‘The working conditions were better than before but despite that none of us were there because we wanted to be. We were trapped. Our money was tightly controlled, although later on we were allowed to keep slightly more of it in order to maintain our look and live somewhere that wasn’t a crack den. Carlos and Alex got some of the sassier girls addicted which gave them even more control. The rest of us were told they’d kill us if we ever tried to escape. We knew that wasn’t an empty threat. And what could we do, go to you guys? We’d be laughed out of the Precinct.’