Eddie Flynn 02-The Plea

by Steve Cavanagh

  His cell phone hummed. He listened and told whoever was on the other end of the line to be ready.

  ‘We’re good to go. Ferrar and Weinstein drove past. It’s him, although he’s got somebody hunkered down in the passenger seat. Probably a shooter. My men are in the parking lot a hundred yards up the street. When he runs, they’ll block him. Stay here,’ said Kennedy.

  He drew his Glock, threw open the front door, and bolted to the left, gun in the air, hollering at El Grito to get out of the car.

  Instantly I heard an engine fire up, then gunshots. Two different sets of gunfire. The high crack of Kennedy’s Glock and the thunderous answer from a shotgun. I peered out my front door. Kennedy was pinned down behind his car, and El Grito was pulling out to pass Kennedy’s car. I saw the passenger window of El Grito’s vehicle coming down. He was going to stop and take out Kennedy on the way.

  I pulled open my mailbox, lifted one set of brass knuckles, and dove into the street. El Grito’s dark sedan leveled with Kennedy’s car, and I saw a sawed-off shotgun in El Grito’s hand, pointed out the passenger window. The shotgun sat over the head of somebody hiding in the passenger seat of the sedan. I hurled the brass as hard as I could. I was only twenty feet away, so it was an easy shot. The knuckles smacked off the windshield, leaving a huge crack.

  El Grito hit the gas, his car fired past Kennedy, and I was already pumping my legs up the steps to my front door. I ran inside and slammed the door, but before it shut, it bucked back with a sharp clang and caught me on the forehead, knocking me to the floor. The steel-back plate on the front door was bent and misshapen where it had stopped the shotgun blast. I tore open the door and saw Kennedy standing in the middle of the street, firing into the back of the sedan as it sped away. The back window exploded, but the sedan only sped up, hurtling toward the SUV with Ferrar at the wheel. They’d waited in the parking lot that serviced the restaurants and now they were right across the narrow one-way street. The sedan mounted the curb and was going to slip past.

  I took off and caught up with Kennedy as we both bolted up the street.

  ‘He’s not going to make it,’ said Kennedy.

  The sedan must’ve hit fifty miles an hour as it sheared through the gap between the SUV on the left and the black railings on the right, taking the front bumper off the fed’s vehicle. A shower of sparks flew into the air from the sedan’s right side and the passenger door fell to the sidewalk.

  As the SUV reversed to pursue its quarry, Kennedy and I caught up with it, leaped into the backseat, and Kennedy roared ‘Go, go, go!’

  Ferrar hit the gas, and Weinstein leaned out the passenger window in front of me with his weapon drawn.

  The sedan was almost at the intersection with Eighth Avenue. He didn’t slow down. Instead he accelerated, and I saw El Grito lean to his right, toward the passenger side.

  Just before he hit the intersection, a body fell out of the passenger side. It hit a parked car and bounced back, tumbling toward the SUV. This block of West Forty-Sixth Street was narrow and with cars parked on either side, the only way to continue the chase was to drive over the person who’d been thrown from El Grito’s car.

  My head hit the passenger seat in front as Ferrar stood on the brakes. We piled out of the car and watched El Grito drive away. Ferrar got on the radio, but we all knew it was pointless. We’d lost him.

  The body on the road had come to a stop. I joined Kennedy as he stood over it. You could tell from the way it had limply rolled across the street that they were dead.

  Kennedy stood over the mess. Green padded jacket. Light sandy hair. I joined the fed and stared at the dead man. It was Gill, Harland and Sinton’s head of security.

  His clothes were ripped, probably from the fall from the moving car. But that wasn’t what had killed him. There was no skin on his right hand. I could see white patches of bone and sinew, but there was no flesh. His throat was gone, as well as most of his lower jaw.

  Kennedy was still catching his breath as he spoke.

  ‘He’s been tortured. Then made to drink the acid that dissolved his hand. We can be sure of one thing – whatever El Grito wanted to know, Gill told him.’

  He turned to Weinstein and said, ‘Call it in. We’ll need the bomb squad for the office, too. I’ll be back. I need to give Eddie a ride.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Kennedy parked his car outside David’s building. He’d called Dell, told him about El Grito and Gill. He left out the part about helping me. Said he’d come by when I found the bomb under my desk. According to Dell, the Rosa Cartel were by far the biggest client of the firm. Almost six of the eight billion in the accounts belonged to the cartel. They wanted to make sure it was safe, and that meant warning Sinton about what would happen if it went missing. It didn’t change Dell’s plan; he just told Kennedy to be careful.

  We got out of Kennedy’s car and entered David’s world.

  The lobby of Central Park Eleven looked like a lobby from a millionaire’s wet dream. Marble floors, antique furniture, oak-paneled private library just to the left of reception, exotic plants that spilled equally unusual scents, piped classical music – Chopin. The receptionist probably made more money in tips in a week than I made in a year. She was tall and blond with a warm face the same color as honeyed milk. Her nails were insanely red, to match lips that sat on her face like twin Ferraris on a Gold Coast beach.

  To the left of reception the elevator bank was protected by four security guards. They all looked familiar, as if I’d seen them before on the security footage. Each one weighed two twenty-five to two fifty, with very little fat. They were tanned, with basketballs for shoulders and no necks. Their heads were shaved close, their uniforms a perfectly pressed light blue. Glocks sat on their hips along with radios and cell phones. I guessed they were either ex-cops or ex-army. They certainly all looked as though they could stand around all day with hands on their hips like monoliths of security.

  I ignored the looks I got from the guard on the right and turned my attention back to the receptionist.

  ‘Hi. I’m here with Special Agent William Kennedy of the FBI. We need to take a look at the crime scene.’

  ‘It’s very late for an inspection. We have instructions from the police not to let anyone near that floor. Do you have ID and a warrant, Agent Kennedy?’ said the receptionist.

  Before he could answer I stepped in. I didn’t want to give the game away that we weren’t actually on the same side as the police department.

  ‘We didn’t believe that we needed a warrant, ma’am. The apartment is still a crime scene.’

  She considered this for all of a second and then slowly shook her head. A Hispanic guy in a gray suit and shirt the same color of light blue as the security guards came out of the elevator and went behind the reception desk. He got the update from the receptionist.

  ‘Could we see some identification, gentlemen?’ said the guy in the suit.

  Kennedy flashed his ID, and I put my hands in my pockets.

  ‘I’m Alex Medrano. I’m head of security here,’ said the man as he read Kennedy’s badge and ID.

  ‘Are you Mr Child’s lawyer?’ he asked me.

  Something about the way he asked that question led me to think that if I lied to him, he’d read it in a heartbeat.

  ‘I represent Mr Child,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll take you gentlemen up myself. Mr Child is very well regarded here. Anything we can do to help, you just ask.’

  The wall of muscle and aftershave parted, and Kennedy and I followed Medrano to the elevators. From a key chain on his waist, he selected a polished piece of plastic and waved it over the eye reader on the control panel. Suddenly the controls lit up and Medrano was able to summon the elevator. The doors opened, and we stepped into the lemon-scented elevator car. Mirrors on each wall, tiled floor, polished oak on the ceiling. Again, Medrano swiped the fob at a laser reader and was then able to select a floor.

  ‘If you have your own fob, does that
allow you onto any floor?’ I said.

  ‘Sure does. We’ve got a good community here. We like to encourage a neighborly attitude, so there are meetings on various floors, social groups, and, of course, the gym is on the thirty-fifth floor, the spa, just above that, and the wine cellar is in the basement.’

  The elevator played the same symphony that had been playing in the lobby, and I guessed it was piped all over the building.

  We arrived at David’s floor with a pleasant chime, and I checked out the security camera, hidden in the top, northeast corner of the elevator.

  The doors opened.

  The music continued.

  We found ourselves in a rectangular landing a little wider than the elevator bank, maybe fifty feet wide. The door in the northeast corner was Gershbaum’s, a door in the northwest corner led to David’s apartment, and there was a single door to the right of the elevator that no doubt led to the stairs. Beside the front doors to each apartment was an antique table that held handkerchiefs in a silver box, a bowl of fresh fruit, and a bottle of designer hand cream. An umbrella stand held a few umbrellas bearing branded CENTRAL PARK ELEVEN logos, and a beautiful mahogany-framed standing mirror sat beside each of the tables. I got the impression that before leaving their floor, the residents relished the opportunity to check their appearance one more time before facing their public.

  Medrano headed for the door in the northwest corner, which was covered in blue and white PD crime tape and again produced his key chain from his pants pocket.

  ‘This is Mr Child’s apartment,’ he said, as he looked for the correct key in a bunch of fifty or sixty keys. From his jacket pocket, Kennedy produced a handful of rubber gloves, handed a pair to me and Medrano. Kennedy and Medrano managed to slip their gloves on without a problem. I found it difficult to hold my files and get the damn things on.

  Eventually Medrano found the right key, slotted it into the lock, and opened the door. The apartment was everything I expected from the Manhattan elite. Open plan, white and beige furniture to match the thick, neutral carpet. It was probably a Dior design; Christine would’ve known right away. The living area was a massive open plan space with twenty-foot-long couches that snaked along the center of the room. A musty, metallic, slightly foul smell permeated the room. The odor lingered almost as a reminder of the violent death that had occurred within those walls. Even with the wind coursing through the apartment from the broken window, that smell remained. At one end of the living area I saw the beginning of white tiles and I headed in that direction. In the kitchen I saw the scene of the murder. One tile had broken up, and a dark, chocolate-red stain covered the broken fragments as they lay in what was now a small depression in the floor. Impact droplets fanned out from the center of the stain. Blood seemed to linger on certain surfaces – a trace that can never fully be removed.

  Roughly seventeen inches below the broken tile I clearly saw a stain from a single droplet of blood.

  Until the crime scene has been released, no cleaning can be done. The police normally hold a scene for a few days to a few weeks, depending on the progress of their investigation. Where the incident happened in the accused’s home, PD will normally hold the crime scene a lot longer so that the accused can’t apply for bail at that address, making bail a lot more difficult as it means the accused not only has to pay a bondsman, but also has to find money to stay somewhere else if family won’t or can’t take them in.

  Mostly, this tactic works, and the defendant doesn’t even bother applying for bail.

  I knelt down to get a closer look at the small bloodstain. The droplet looked to be around two to three millimeters in diameter, dark and perfectly formed. Far as I could tell, it hadn’t been trodden on, or smeared, or disturbed in any way since that droplet left Clara’s body.

  Standing back, I took time to look over the scene, making sure there were no other bloodstains anywhere in the kitchen. There were none. Some six feet ahead of the spot where the body had been found, the wind blew through the panel-sized gap in the glass wall, caused by the windowpane shattering from a gunshot. The safety glass had exploded on impact and tiny fragments spread out from the balcony toward where the body had lain. The fragments had stopped before reaching the broken, stained tile. Most of the glass lay on the balcony. I stepped through the gap left by the broken pane and stood on the balcony. I was glad of my overcoat, and I pulled the lapels around me. The downpour had ceased, but the balcony remained slippery from the rain-slicked broken glass. I looked above and below. There was no way anyone could have scaled up to the apartment or dropped to this balcony from above. The balcony overhead was too high, and the brickwork had been smoothed over with plaster. No foot- or handholds anywhere. Below me, the streetlights dotted around Central Park shined dimly through the trees. We were so close I could smell the grass. The two-lane avenue separated this side of the street from the park, and it felt as though I could lean out and touch the leaves of the oak trees sprouting from the park grounds. The balcony overlooked a quiet stretch of lawn just a bit smaller than a Little League field. It was separated from the park pathway by a row of high hedges. An oak tree sat in the right corner. A collection of empty beer cans scattered around the trunk. You pay thirty million for a park view and you get teenagers and drunks.

  Kennedy and I took five minutes each to split up and check every room in the apartment for bloodstains. None were found.

  From the files I’d brought with me, I removed the ME’s report and flicked through to the drawing of the body. On most ME reports there is a standard, preprinted female form; the ME then adds the location of the bullet wounds and, on the side-profile drawing, they insert the angle of bullet penetration. Aside from the head shots, Clara had been shot twice in the back. The first bullet had lodged in her spine, probably paralyzing her instantly. The second entrance wound was close to the spine, but this bullet had passed through her body and exited through the lower part of the chest wall. An exit wound was marked just to the left side of her chest.

  I handed the drawing to Kennedy.

  He studied the report again and looked over the scene.

  ‘The angle is a very slight downward trajectory,’ he said.

  But I wasn’t listening to a word Kennedy had said. Instead I was looking at a framed architectural plan on the kitchen wall. It was drawn in white on a blue background, bore a signature in the bottom left-hand corner, but despite this, it looked familiar. I flicked through the prosecution file until I found the sketch that had been drawn of the crime scene denoting the location of the victim’s body in the apartment.

  Medrano was still waiting at the front door. I beckoned him over.

  ‘Is this what I think it is?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, it’s a Claudio. These are in every apartment in the building. The owners were good friends with Claudio, and he designed the refurb in 1981. Residents get a framed print when they take up occupation.’

  ‘No, I’m not interested in the designer. Is this an accurate plan of the apartment?’

  ‘It is. Residents are not permitted to make structural alterations.’

  I called Kennedy. He came into the kitchen area and stood beside us, then, realizing how tired he’d become, he reached for a stool and planted himself. It was after two a.m., and he looked completely exhausted.

  ‘Medrano, if I managed to persuade Kennedy to get an agent to come up here in the next few hours with a camera and a bottle of luminol, would you be able to make sure they can get access to this apartment?’

  ‘I’m supposed to finish in an hour. I’m … You know we got strict instructions from NYPD not to let anyone up here, right?’

  Kennedy was about to speak. I tugged at his jacket to silence him. I wanted to get Medrano talking.

  ‘I think this might be really useful for my client. You said David had a good reputation in the building?’

  ‘Yeah, you could say that. One of my supervisors, Cory, his six-year-old kid got this rare form of leukemia ’bout a year ago.
Insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment. Building management let Cory put up a fund-raising poster in the lobby and a donation box. He needed to raise four hundred grand for treatment. After a week, he’d raised twenty-five grand; people in this building got a lot of money and they’re pretty generous. Anyway, Mr Child had been away on business for a while. When he got back, he saw the poster. He called building management and met with Cory – asked him how much he needed and what kind of treatment the kid would need. Cory said the treatment could prolong his kid’s life – maybe five years. But that’s all.’

  Medrano adjusted his stance, wiped his mouth.

  ‘Well, Mr Child did a little research on the net, found this expert. Next thing you know, he flew Cory’s whole family to Geneva, paid more than a million dollars for experimental treatment. Six weeks ago Cory’s kid got the all clear.’

  Kennedy and I exchanged glances.

  ‘What I’m saying is, will this help him?’

  ‘I think it might,’ I said.

  ‘As long as it’s between us,’ he said.

  I smiled and turned to Kennedy. ‘Okay, this is what your guy’s looking for. We’ll just take a peek before we leave,’ I said, lifting the framed Claudio from the wall.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  Our investigation hadn’t yet given me the answers I was looking for, but I was confident that the FBI’s forensic officer would give credence to my theory. Right then that’s all I had, a theory. But it fit.

  ‘You know what to tell Forensics to look for?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, I’m good,’ said Kennedy.

  ‘Great. I’ll need another favor.’

  ‘You’re getting pretty loose with the favors,’ said Kennedy, but he didn’t take it any further. I knew I was pushing it, but I figured he owed me. The bags under his eyes seemed to have grown larger and darker, but there was an alertness to him. He was beginning to doubt Child’s guilt, and he wanted to see where this led.