by Blake Banner
“Brave girl.”
I nodded. “That is the blood of our killer.”
She looked up at me. “You think it was Humberto after all?”
There was the sound of a siren outside and after a moment, the door opened. I went down the stairs to meet the paramedics and pointed them in the direction of the living room. The CSI team was close behind them. I greeted Luis, the team leader, and pointed up the stairs.
“In the master bedroom. There is a knife. The blood on the blade is a top priority. It belongs to the assailant who just attempted to murder the owner of the house. The prints on the handle belong to the owner’s daughter, so you’ll want her prints for comparison.”
“Gotcha.”
“The assailant escaped through the back garden. I have two officers out there now, but we are going to need to go over it with a fine-toothed comb.”
He gave me the thumbs up and made his way upstairs with his team. We returned to the living room, where a paramedic was bandaging Humberto’s arm. Paul was on the sofa next to Sylvie with his arm around her. He looked at me with bitterness in his face.
“You see what you’ve done, Detective? You couldn’t leave things alone…”
“Can it, Paul. I’m sick of hearing that crap. We don’t leave murders uninvestigated just because it happens to suit you and Sylvie to ignore them. Are we clear on that?”
He muttered something and turned back to Sylvie.
“I need to know what happened to Humberto. I need to know what he saw in the garden. Can you ask him? Can you make any sense of his answers?”
He turned to Humberto and spoke to him in Portuguese. Humberto’s face took on a look of awe and horror.
“Santa Maria Plena di graza, aclamando auxilio, deu! Deu! Auxilio! El Diavolo Incarnato com punhal sanguino mi atacato o jardam. Eu lo abatido il suo punhal. Humberto luta! Luta! E il diavolo corre! Corre!”
Suddenly, he was laughing his braying laugh and bouncing up and down. The paramedic turned to me.
“Detective, he should really go to the hospital.”
I nodded and looked at Paul. “What did he say?”
He sighed. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense. He says that Sylvie was screaming for help. He equates her with the virgin Mary. There was a devil incarnate with a dagger that attacked him in the garden. He defeated the devil and knocked the dagger from his hand. They fought and the devil fled.”
“He knocked the dagger from the devil’s hand?”
“That’s what he says, but it could all be a fantasy.”
“Yeah, you said that before about him. Maybe if you listened more and judged less, Paul, you might learn something about your son.”
“I don’t need to take that from you, Detective.”
“No, you don’t, but you’d be wise to. You want to go to the hospital with him?”
“Yes.”
“There will be an officer with you. Paul, Humberto is not a suspect in this investigation, and I am trying really hard to keep you and Sylvie from the top of my list. My advice to you is stop trying to hide things from me, quit this stupid conspiracy of silence, stop behaving like you’re guilty. Don’t screw it up.”
He got up and they left with the ambulance crew.
When they’d gone, I sat and watched Sylvie a moment. She was quiet, leaning against her daughter.
“Sylvie, I hope you’ve been doing some thinking. Because all your efforts to keep what happened a secret have been to no avail. All you’ve done is delay things, and in delaying them, made them worse. You could have been killed today, and it was only the courage of your daughter that saved your life. But I hope you realize that in saving you, she put her own life at risk. You are damned lucky that today you are not the mother of two dead children.”
She closed her eyes and seemed to shiver. Mary looked at me in horror. I pressed on. “Sooner or later you have to confront the truth, Sylvie. Sooner or later you will have no choice but to face up to the reality. You may as well do it now, because the longer you delay, the tougher it’s going to be.”
In my peripheral vision, I sensed Dehan sit in the armchair. She was watching me as hard as she was watching Sylvie.
“Sylvie, look at me.”
She opened her eyes and looked at me. There was resentment, and maybe even hatred in her eyes.
“Did Humberto attack you tonight?”
It was barely perceptible, but she shook her head.
“Do you know who did attack you? Did you recognize your attacker?”
She closed her eyes and turned away from me. She was not going to talk.
Behind me, the French doors opened and an officer put his head in. “Detective, we found a knife.”
I turned to Dehan. She was frowning. I smiled. I said to the uniform, “Go upstairs and inform the CSI team leader, will you?”
To Dehan, I said, “Let’s take a look.”
We stepped out into the garden. Thirty or forty feet away, we could see the glow of a flashlight, and we made our way toward it. As we got closer, we could see there was a circular patch of grass illuminated by the torch, and at its center there was a large hunting knife with a rubber grip and a serrated back to the blade.
We hunkered down to look at it. Dehan said, “He obviously likes this kind of knife. But two gets you twenty he was wearing gloves.”
I nodded. “You can count on it. But my bet is he ain’t the brightest button in the sewing box, and he only wore gloves today. My bet, he’s owned this knife for a long time, and it is covered in his prints.”
She looked at me and laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“I’ll bet you a steak dinner.”
“You’re on.”
TWENTY THREE
Frank phoned while Luis was bagging the knife.
“John, I rushed the tests for you and I have the preliminary results. God alone knows how you arrived at that conclusion, but you were right.”
“About the prints or the DNA?”
“Both. It was exactly as you thought...”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. There was a large, orange moon rising over the treetops in the east. I smiled at her. I think she smiled back and winked. “That makes perfect sense, then. Listen, Luis is coming in in a while with a couple of knives that were used in an attack here at the Martins’ home.”
“Another one?”
“Yeah. It seems I stirred up a hornets’ nest. Will you acquaint him with your findings? They’ll be relevant.”
He was silent for a moment, then sighed like he wanted to kick himself. “You want me to look at the knives? I can do it on my own time.”
“I would appreciate that, Frank, though I have a hunch we’ll have this sewn up tonight.”
“You better start house hunting in Florida, pal!”
I hung up and grinned at Dehan. “You haven’t got any hot dates tonight, have you?”
She looked surprised. “What do you call this?”
I barked a laugh and called the captain. He answered like I was his least favorite mother in law.
“John! You just caught me. I was on my way home.”
“Captain. I need an APB on Ahmed Abadi.” I outlined the situation and told him we were headed to Ahmed’s house and would need back up. “He may be on the run and he may be armed, injured, and very dangerous.”
“I’ll see to it. Keep me posted… Or, um, report to me in the morning.”
“Will do, sir, in the morning.”
“Good.”
I hung up and hesitated a moment. “Dehan, I’ll meet you at the car. There’s just something I want to look at in the rectory.”
She didn’t look happy. She sighed and made her way toward the Martins’ house and I headed through the fence toward the rectory. There, in the kitchen, I I found what I had expected to find. Another piece slotted into the puzzle.
On the way back, I instructed one of the patrol cars to stay with the Martins till the morning, then stepped into the street. It was qui
et and there was a chill in the air. The red and blue lights from the patrol cars pulsed, silent on the blacktop. The amber glow from the street lamps was diffused by the leaves of the plane trees, making the road into an eerie tunnel of half resolved shadows.
I climbed into the muffled seclusion of the Jaguar and closed the door. Dehan got in beside me. Her door echoed like a single shot in the night.
“Okay, Stone, time to talk. I am not here to tag along. I’m your partner. You seem real convinced of whatever it is you think, and so far you’ve been right. But I am not seeing it. Explain.”
I fired up the engine and headed north up Bogart Avenue, fast.
“Would you be mad if I said I wasn’t sure myself?”
I made the tires squeal as I turned left out of Bogart onto Morris Park, and accelerated toward Bronxdale. She looked at me like I was insane.
“Yes?”
I winced. “It’s a case of elimination, Dehan. It couldn’t be anybody else, could it? You know the old Holmesian adage, ‘eliminate the impossible…’”
“And whatever is left is the truth, I know. But…” She spread her hands.
I went on, “Exactly, whatever is left is the truth. Therefore, it had to be Ahmed, because it couldn’t be anybody else. Once I accepted that, things began to fall into place. But there are still a couple of details I need to confirm.”
“Like?”
I made a right on Bronxdale and hit the gas, moving north at speed toward Rhinelander. Somewhere in the night, I could hear the wail of sirens, our back up coming to join us. I grabbed the radio.
“Dispatch, this is Detective Stone proceeding to the residence of Ahmed Abadi on Unionport Road. I am approaching from Rhinelander Avenue. Requesting backup approach from Morrison Park.”
The radio crackled its confirmation and relayed the message.
The tires squealed as I made a left onto Rhinelander. I hit the gas and we surged forward and covered the half mile to Unionport Road in thirty seconds. As we moved down the road, I could feel the adrenalin pumping hot in my belly.
“We don’t know what weapons he has at home, Dehan. We do know he is prepared to kill and he is reckless. Remove the safety on your automatic, and if you have to use lethal force, do not hesitate. Are we clear?”
She eyed me a moment. “Yeah, we’re clear.”
I pulled into Unionport and stopped forty feet from his house, placing my car across the road. I got out, drew my weapon, and removed the safety. I could hear my back up approaching along Morris Park Avenue, a thin wail above the whine of a turbine on the railway tracks.
Two patrol cars pulled into the road ahead of me. One blocked the road. The other pulled up to the door. Two uniformed cops got out. I knew them, Stuart and Chen. I approached them.
“Hold your positions here at the car. He may be armed and he is very dangerous. Stay behind your vehicle.”
They acknowledged, drew their weapons, and remained behind the the car. I climbed the two stairs to the door and hammered loudly on it, then leaned on the bell. I could hear a woman screaming hysterically inside. She seemed to be saying something, but not in English. I hammered again.
“NYPD! Open up!”
The screaming grew closer. We backed up and stepped to the side, training our weapons on the door. It was wrenched open by a woman encased from head to foot in a black burka, like a Victorian ghost who’s just come down the chimney, covered in soot. She was screaming and waving her hands, and behind her she had four very frightened-looking kids.
We moved toward her, keeping her covered. I said, “Where is Ahmed? Ahmed Abadi? Where is he?”
She just kept shouting at me, waving her hands around. She sounded as though she was appealing to me for sympathy or understanding. Both were impossible right then. I turned toward the patrol car.
“Stuart! I need this woman and her kids taken into custody as material witnesses. Get a translator, too. She’s speaking Iraqi. It is very urgent.”
“Yes, sir!”
Chen made the call while Stuart took her and the kids and put them in the back of the vehicle, to await the translator and further back up. Dehan and I went inside. She covered the stairs while I kicked in the living room door.
“Clear!”
The kitchen was also clear and we moved up the stairs to the bedrooms. The bathroom was empty, but there was a blood-stained towel and shirt in the bath. A small room with four beds in it was also empty. The next room was obviously his and his wife’s. The wardrobe was open and there was a suitcase on the bed. In it, there was a pump-action shotgun, a Sig P226 tacops automatic pistol, and several boxes of ammunition. Dehan pointed to one of the boxes. I had already seen it. It was empty.
“Those are intermediate cartridges. They are not for a pistol. You’d use them in an assault rifle.”
We stared at each other, like we were reading each other’s minds.
“Where has he gone, Dehan?” I turned and ran down the stairs.
“Stuart! Where are you?”
“Detective?”
He was at the door.
“Get the captain. I don’t give a damn where he is or what he’s doing. Get him. Inform him we have a situation. Ahmed Abadi is at large and injured, armed with an assault rifle. Call Dispatch. I want an armed guard on the Martins’ house and on St. George’s Church. Also, we need a translator now!” I pointed at the patrol car. “I don’t give a damn what you do or what the Geneva Convention has to say about it. I assume full responsibility. Make that woman tell you where her husband has gone. Now!”
But I knew it was pointless. I knew we were out of time. I turned. Dehan was behind me.
“Where did he go, Dehan?”
“The mosque. It’s just up the road.”
I nodded. “Yes. The mosque. Let’s go.”
We climbed in the Jag and I swung back toward Rheinlander Avenue.
“This is going to get damned complicated. We cannot let this get political.”
Dehan looked grim. “Good luck with that. I think it’s too late. I think it already did.”
I glanced at her. I knew she was right. “Then we have to take this son of a bitch down before the politicos get here.”
She looked at me but she didn’t say anything. I pulled up outside the mosque and climbed out.
It didn’t look like you’d expect a mosque to look. There were no minarets and no domes. It was just two shabby, terraced houses, one painted a dull yellow, and the other a faded oxblood. The doors and windows were open, and there was a guy in a robe with a big beard leaning on the wall outside, watching us with his arms crossed. I approached him and showed him my badge.
“Detectives Stone and Dehan. I’m looking for Ahmed Abadi. You know where he is?”
He hunched his shoulders slightly, but that was all he responded with.
I did it as quickly and quietly as I could. I weigh two hundred and twenty pounds and there isn’t much fat on me. I put my whole weight behind the punch and drove my fist deep into his solar plexus. As he doubled up, we both grabbed him and dragged him inside. Dehan was speaking urgently.
“This man is ill! Make way! Get a doctor!”
There were not many people inside, just a couple of young guys and an old man with a beard down to his waist. Dehan closed the doors and I threw the guy with the hat across a coffee table with a bunch of magazines and leaflets on it. Dehan pulled her piece and I took a moment to look at the two young guys. One had scared eyes, the other looked terrified. I grabbed the terrified one and dragged him to where his pal had rolled onto the floor, vomiting. Tripped him up so he fell on his back on top of his friend. I knelt on his chest and shoved the barrel of my 9mm into his mouth. I knew I was screwed and I knew my career was probably over. But it was a small price to pay to stop a crazy with an assault rifle. I didn’t care what damned religion he was. He had to be stopped. I let him all see that in my eyes, then snarled.
“I am going to count to three. Then I am going to blow your kneecaps off. Th
en I am going to find your mother and your sisters, and I am going to blow their kneecaps off, too. You understand me? Now, where is Ahmed Abadi? One, two…”
He was already gagging and babbling.
“He is no here! No here!
“Where?”
“He is making jihad!”
I gave him a backhander that made his eyes water. “Where, goddamit? Where?”
The old guy with the long beard started babbling. “Please, sir! Please! We are not fundamentalist! We just want peace! Please no hurt! Ahmed is acting on his own! He been here talking crazy. We no support him!”
I growled, “I gave you your chance. You blew it!” I rammed the Glock against his right kneecap and he screamed like a girl.
“No! No! No!”
I gave him another backhander. “For the last time! Where?”
They all started shouting at the same time. And they all shouted the same thing.
“The whore! The whore and the priest! The whore and the priest!”
TWENTY FOUR
Dehan called for further back up to meet us at the Martins’ while I burned rubber back down Rhinelander and Bronxdale. On the way, the captain called. I put him on speaker.
“What the hell is going on, Stone?”
“We have a situation, sir. The politics are up to you. I have a dangerous man armed with an assault rifle. He is headed for the Martins’ home and for St. George’s church. I am told he is on a jihad. We have every reason to believe he is going there with murderous intent. It is my intention to stop him before anybody else gets hurt.”
“Stone, the ramifications…”
“Sir, with all due respect, that is your department. I think you need to contact the local community leaders and make them understand that killing people and harboring murderers is against the law.”
“You don’t need to tell me my job, Stone. Listen to me. Isn’t Dehan… um… could there be a conflict of… um…”
“Breaking up, sir. We are at destination and facing imminent threat. Over.”
I pulled up outside St. George’s on Fowler Avenue, muted my cell and got out. It was deathly quiet and there was nobody visible in the street. We moved quickly to the side of the road, seeking the cover of the trees in the church garden, and the parked cars. We came to the gate and squatted down.