Spectrum (The Karen Vail Series) (22 page)

He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, then looked up and realized that Vail had returned. He gazed down at the floor, seemingly embarrassed, some degree of lucidity returning.

Vail stood there, unsure of what to do, what to say—but knowing that Russo was waiting for her and she had to get back to work. “I’ll pick up Jonathan tonight.” He did not respond. “Deacon, look at me. Look at me.” He craned his head up, slowly. “Don’t you dare get behind the wheel.”

Can I trust him? Is he thinking clearly? Can I trust him with my son?

“I’m taking your car keys. And I’m calling the school and telling them not to release him to you.”

His head wandered left, then right, then left again.

“When I get home tonight we’re gonna have a long talk.”

“When’s that? Midnight? Nevvvvver see you anymore!”

Vail grabbed Deacon’s keys and headed outside, where Russo was waiting for her. “He’s drunk.”

“I noticed.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Russo got into the car, then started the engine. “This happen before?”

Vail closed her eyes.
This is embarrassing. But if I can’t tell Russo, who can I tell?

“He said he hasn’t been feeling good. Said he hasn’t been happy, but he doesn’t know what’s wrong.”

“You were a psych major, weren’t you?”

“Psych and art history. Double major.”

“And what does your schooling tell you?”

She thought a moment. “He’s depressed.”

Russo pulled away from the curb. “Get him some help, Karen. Before it gets out of hand.”

I think we’re past that point.

36

>BELT PARKWAY

Springfield Gardens, Queens

Thursday, April 1, 1999

Vail paged through the copy of her file, comparing it to the one they had been using in the meeting—also a duplicate, since Fonzarella insisted on having the original in his possession.

“Anything?” Russo asked as he changed lanes on the Belt Parkway.

“The scratch actually looks okay—just the usual flubs the police administrative aide makes from time to time. Nothing major.”
And the forged signature—oh, crap. That’s when I sprained my finger. That’s why the signature didn’t look right. Shit, that’s just great. I left the commissioner’s meeting for nothing?

“So what does that mean? It’s okay? All this for nothing?”

“No, hang on. Give me a minute.”
Think of a bullshit excuse. No. I can’t do that to Russo.
She turned the pages, looking for something—anything—and that’s when she saw it.

“Wait a minute.” Vail flipped the document, went back, and then rifled through the remaining pages. “It’s missing.”

“What’s missing? I thought you said the sixty-one was—”

“No, this is a DD-5. After Manos was murdered, the detective handling the case—Berger—he went down with a hip, right?”

“Yeah, had the thing replaced, never made it back on the job. Surgeon botched it, was wheelchair-bound for a couple years and then had an embolism. He bit the dust last year.”

“Okay, so remember when you brought me into the case my first day on the job? Berger let me make a copy of the file to look over, so I could get a feel for how an investigation was run. A day or so after CSU finished up, Carole Manos’s mother found a book kicked under the couch that she swore was not her daughter’s. She brought it by the precinct and left it with the PAA, who put it in Berger’s mailbox. When he got in the next morning, he vouchered the book as investigative in case he needed it at a later date, he wrote up his DD-5, and that was that.”

“Right, I kinda sorta remember something like that.”

“Well, now DD-5 number 14 is missing from the file.”

“Misfiled?”

“No, it’s just not there.” Vail stared at the copied report.
Doesn’t make sense. It was there when I made the copies of the file and now it’s not?
“Do me a favor. Let’s stop by Property and get a look at this book mentioned in the DD-5.”

“Why?”

“Just being thorough.”

“What kind of book is it?”

“Something titled … ” She scanned the report. “Here it is.
How Humans Die.
An old, worn copy.”

“
How Humans Die.
What the hell kind of book is that? Fiction? Nonfiction?”

“I’ll have to look it up when we get back to the house.”

“You do that,” Russo said. “Not sure it’s something I’d want to read. I’ve seen enough humans die. That’s all I need to know on the subject.”

THEY ARRIVED AT headquarters, officially known as One Police Plaza, and entered at street level through the employee entrance. A cop sat behind a duty desk that was lined with gadgets, levers, switches, and LED lights.

“What the hell does all that high-tech shit do?” Vail asked.

“No idea,” Russo said as they placed their NYPD ID cards against the electronic reader. He lowered his voice and leaned closer to her. “And I’m sure that cop has no clue, either.”

Vail placed her right index finger on the scanner, and after they both got the green light, they entered and headed left, to the Property clerk’s office.

They walked through the large, oversize doors and up to the desk, which was secured by a partition with a window and a speaker.

“Hey, Charlie.”

“Loo, how’s it going?”

“Same old shit, you know how it is.”

Charlie reached under the desk and a buzzer sounded. Russo thanked him and they proceeded in.

They told the PAA what case they needed evidence for, and they were directed back to utilitarian storage racks containing labeled boxes.

They located the correct container and rummaged through the items obtained during the Manos murder investigation. But the book was not there.

“This is not good,” Vail said. “First the DD-5’s missing and now the actual evidence is missing. If it was just the form, maybe you could argue it was accidentally dumped. But the book? In Property? That doesn’t just disappear unless someone wants it gone.”

“It’s in the voucher log,” Russo said. “Right?”

“Has to be. I’ll check when we get back.” She pulled out the DD-5 copy and handed it to Russo. “DD-5’s got the voucher number, the voucher officer. It’s definitely in the log book.”

Russo asked the aide for a list of everyone who had accessed the case materials. Five minutes later she handed it over.

“Everyone’s accounted for—Berger, me, you, Fonzarella—except, who’s Victor Danzig?”

“Danzig?” Russo shrugged.

“He was a PAA in your office,” the aide said. “Had some problems, got canned.”

“Oh shit,” Russo said. “I remember that jerkoff. Danzig was an addict, heroin and crack and anything else he could get his hands on. Once we realized what was going on, we fired his ass.”

“But why would he care about a DD-5 and this
How Humans Die
book?”

Russo thought a moment then locked gazes with Vail. “Unless he’s the killer. And he was trying to remove something that could implicate him.”

Vail nodded. “Right. For whatever reason, he brought that book with him to the crime scene and dropped it, lost it under the couch, forgot it. Which means maybe there’s something about it, or written in it, that could point us in his direction.”

“But without the book, we don’t have any way of knowing what it was that could be a problem for the killer.”

As they started toward Russo’s car, Vail said, “If Berger didn’t find anything obvious, it may be that whatever it is that the killer’s afraid of is subtle—or we’d need to have the bigger picture to make sense of it. But whatever it was, he didn’t want to risk it.”

“Berger might not have gone through it too closely. I probably wouldn’t have, not when it wasn’t clear it was evidence.” Russo skirted a puddle in the pothole-filled parking lot and got into the car. “Find another copy of that book somewhere. Call used bookstores, see if there are any book dealers or clearinghouses that might carry it or at least know something about it. And if you can find out the publisher, maybe they’ve got a copy hanging around in their office or a warehouse somewhere. If our clue’s in the text of the book, it won’t matter if we have the original or a copy.”

“But if there were handwritten notes, it won’t do us a whole lot of good.”

“Gotta start somewhere.” Russo hit a particularly deep pothole and the suspension bottomed out. “Goddamn roads.”

“How about we start with Victor Danzig?”

“Good point. Let’s get moving on that right now.”

“We should bring Fonzarella into this,” Vail said. “And Mendoza. Right?”

Russo turned to Vail, a devious look in his eyes. “Mendoza first,” he said, holding up an index finger. “If this turns into something, I wanna make sure the chief knows you were the one who came up with it, not his star asshole Fonzarella.”

“I call him Mozzarella.”

“That fits.” Russo laughed. “Man, that really fits.”

37

>MANHATTAN SOUTH HOMICIDE SQUAD

Thursday, April 1, 1999

Vail got off the phone after laying out the discovery to Mendoza, who was going to inform Fonzarella himself while they located possible locations for Danzig. He was also going to place ESU on alert in case they were able to track him down with reasonable certainty.

He told Vail that she and Russo were to report back to the squad immediately.

As they hit midtown, Vail thought about the implications. Could this be Hades? Could they be so lucky, after all this time, to suddenly catch a break? Could
Vail
be so lucky to revive her career after suffering a serious stall only hours earlier?

They parked and ran into the precinct, where they found Fonzarella, Kearney, and Mendoza in the briefing room, huddled over a large format map. A computer terminal operated by a PAA displayed potential locations.

“What do we got?” Russo asked.

“Danzig’s had two run-ins with us since his termination,” Mendoza said. “One possession rap, which he beat on a procedural fuckup in chain of evidence, and another firearms arrest when he was threatening his girl-friend. She decided not to press charges so he was released.”

“And we have indications he lied on his department app,” Fonzarella said. “Danzig may be an alias. We’re looking into it, but it’s slow going. The records aren’t computerized, so we’ve got a couple guys going through the docs at One PP.”

“Anything to indicate he could be Hades?” Russo asked.

“Nothing yet,” Mendoza said. “But I’ll tell you what. We ain’t goin’ in there without ESU taking the lead.” He reached over and signed a form the PAA shoved in front of him. “Danzig’s an addict. He’s unstable, probably armed, and unpredictable. If he is our doer, he’s now in the news. He knows he’s got our attention and we could be comin’ after him.”

“I doubt he’s going to be thinking we’re on to him,” Vail said. “He did a good job of purging both the evidence and the DD-5. If I wasn’t so … ”

“Anal?” Russo said.

I was thinking “thorough.”
“If I wasn’t so ‘anal’ about my files, I wouldn’t have had a copy of it. But I always keep copies of all my files just in—”

“Yeah,” Mendoza said. “Give yourself a pat on the back but spare me the narrative. You got lucky, nothing more.”

Lucky?

“Point is,” said Kearney, who came up behind Mendoza, “we’re gonna assume the worst.”

THREE HOURS LATER, they had verified Danzig’s whereabouts using Con Ed bills, test phone calls to his home posing as a telemarketer, and a stakeout with two detectives outfitted with binoculars.

A block away from the apartment, Vail, Russo, Fonzarella, and Mendoza sat in the back of a mobile command vehicle alongside several technicians with TARU, the Technical Assistance Response Unit. The ESU truck was parked directly in front of them.

Russo radioed the surveillance team on the point-to-point channel. “Do we have eyes-on?”

“Affirm,” came the response. “Male subject, matching the description of the suspect. One subject arrived at 5:57 and left at 6:03. We ID’d him as Felix Rivera. Small-time drug dealer. Danzig may be his supplier. We took no action and he left without incident. No other parties visible in the apartment during the past forty-five minutes.”

The ESU lieutenant stepped into the mobile command center and huddled with Mendoza and Russo.

“We’ve made phone calls to the surrounding apartments and quietly evacuated as many residents as we could,” Mendoza said. “Standard bullshit—told them there’s a gas leak, yada yada.”

“So we’re as ready as we can be,” Russo said.

“Affirm. You people still want to join us? Because I wouldn’t recommend—”

“Our case,” Fonzarella said. “You take the lead, but we’re going with you.” He paused, glanced at Vail. “
I’m
going, don’t know about her.”

Vail fought the urge to roll her eyes.
Like I’m going to let him go without me.

“This is the most high risk entry we do,” the lieutenant said. “Close quarters and no way of knowing what’s on the opposite side of the door. And because we’ve got apartments on both sides, above and below, we have to control our shots. Even though we tried to evacuate as many as we could, an errant round can be a bad friggin’ nightmare.”

“Understood,” Fonzarella said. “You guys are running the show.”

“Fine.” The lieutenant looked at Vail, then Russo, then Mendoza. “Whoever’s going, suit up, meet us outside in five.”

THEY MOVED QUICKLY and quietly in the shadows wearing vests and helmets, 5.11 Tactical TDU pants, Vertex radios, MP-5 semiautomatic submachine guns, and Glock sidearms—except for Vail and Fonzarella, who had only service pistols and raid vests. They took up their positions in the front and rear of the brick apartment house.

Mature large-trunked trees, which had shed their leaves months earlier, provided cover from the streetlights and casual gawkers in adjacent buildings.

The ESU officers did their thing, using hand signals to position them-selves and observe the suspect’s residence. Vail and Fonzarella brought up the rear, staying close to the breaching team going in the front.

Five minutes later, they had climbed the four flights of the tight stairwell and stacked up along the railing opposite the door to the apartment.

Two officers took a position on either side of the entrance, the one on the left bearing the heavy roll-shaped battering ram in both hands. There was a wide-angle lens in the door, which they covered with a piece of blue tape.

“On my mark,” the lieutenant said.

Vail brought up her Glock and trained it on the door, as the other officers had done with their MP-5s. But as she awaited the breach order, she noticed what looked like a series of security cameras hidden in the ceiling of the hallway.

“Uh, loo, we got cameras!”

His response came over her earpiece for all to hear. “Fuck.”

Cameras … is Danzig monitoring us, aware that we’re lined up in the hallway, about to breach his front door—

As that thought rattled around her mind, a barrage of automatic gunfire blasted through the walls, spewing lead projectiles, wood chips, and plaster chunks at them.

Vail and Fonzarella were driven backward into the railing as several bullets struck their vests.

She hit the wrought iron hard, getting the wind knocked out of her. She managed to hold onto her Glock and twisted toward the doorway, watching for the suspect to emerge.

But some of the rounds must’ve taken out the hallway lightbulbs because the area suddenly went dark. The echoing noise in the small space was deafening.

A second later, there was yelling in her ear and all firing ceased. A dense haze filled the small rectangular space, which was now lit by the head-lamps the officers had switched on. The beams danced up and down, left and right, as the men swiveled their heads and advanced on the blown-out door.

“Officers down!” someone shouted in Vail’s earpiece.

Vail swiveled and used her flashlight to survey the carnage. Two men were on the ground, one bleeding from the thigh and the other sprawled face up, unmoving.

As the others entered the apartment in search of Danzig, she called in a 10-13—officer needs assistance—for the injured man, then ripped a strip of cloth from her pants and tied it around his leg above the wound.

Next she scrabbled toward the other officer, negotiating the debris piled atop the worn tile.

Vail angled her light onto him to check his pulse, and found a nasty neck wound with a lot of blood pooling under his head.
Shit.
A round had struck him in the carotid, resulting in a rapid arterial bleed-out. To her right, a bright red spray pattern was spattered across the floor and nearby wall.

Realizing she had not seen or heard from Fonzarella, she swung her torso around and scanned the area. Aside from the two downed officers, she was the only person in the hallway. Had he gone in with the tac team?

Vail heard noise at the bottom of the staircase and brought her Glock up. “Police, don’t move!” She swung over the top of the railing and looked down. It was a little brighter at the bottom, since the lower stairwell lights were still burning. But what she saw made her stomach contract.

Fonzarella lay dead at the bottom, his limbs—and head—twisted in an unnatural position.

AN HOUR PASSED and Vail was still numb. She had removed her tactical gear to be examined by a paramedic, unaware of much of what she had been asked during her debrief—or what her answers had been.

At some point, while she was seated at the curb, Russo came over and sat down next to her.

“I heard you’ve got some bruised ribs. You doin’ okay?”

Not really.
“I’m fine.” She sat there a long moment, Russo giving her time. She brushed her red hair back off her face. “Wasn’t a secret that I didn’t like Fonzarella. But I feel a genuine sense of loss. He was a member of the team, he wanted what we all do—to catch the bastard. He didn’t deserve to die like that. I just feel like crying.” Another pause, then she managed a chuckle. “I guess that’s a good thing because up until a few minutes ago, I wasn’t feeling much of anything.” She pulled her gaze over to his face. “How’d he fall?”

“Best we can tell, he was hit in the chest and fell backward, over the railing. Because he was so tall, he tipped right over. We’ll know more later, but Finkelstein’s pretty sure he broke his neck on impact.”

“The other officers?”

“One’s dead, I think you knew that. The other’s gonna be okay. GSW to the thigh. He’ll make a full recovery, thanks to you. Good work with the tourniquet.”

Vail closed her eyes. “And Danzig? I heard they still hadn’t located him.”

“Looks like he slipped out. He apparently had his escape planned. Best guess is he survived our barrage using a ballistic shield, like the riot shield we use in crowd control. They found it in the living room.

“Loo thinks he went up to the roof because he couldn’t go down. We had officers there, and he probably knew that. He spent years around a precinct. He picked up a lot of stuff about procedure, techniques. And I’m guessing he had his getaway route planned because of his drug dealing business. If things went south, he had a preplanned way out. And he saw us coming on the cameras. Plenty of time to get things ready.”

“Anything in the apartment suggesting he’s Hades?”

“I think that’s gonna take awhile. I called Ryan Chandler personally and asked him to get down here. He was off duty, but he’s here now. He and his team just started processing the scene.”

“Can I go up, take a look?”

Russo grinned. “I think you’ve earned your pay for the night. Go home. Your son.”

“He’s at my mom’s. I called her when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to pick him up from day care.”

And I sure as hell wasn’t going to trust Deacon with that.

“So go get your son. Help your husband. He needs you.”

Vail pushed herself up. She was exhausted, as if someone had put an IV in her arm and siphoned away all her energy. “Okay. You’re right.”

“I usually am.” He laughed. “We both know that ain’t true.”

“Glad
you
said it.”

“If Sofia were here, she woulda beat me to it.” He glanced around at the CSU techs milling about. “You know, you’re gonna get a rep.”

Vail turned to him. “For what?”

“Bad shit happens to people you partner with.” He chuckled again.

Forgive me if I don’t think that’s so funny.
She let it pass. She had other concerns. “Seriously—you think I got a problem here?”

Russo faced her and shoved both hands in his jacket pockets. She was sure he knew what she was asking: because she had been the one to bring them the Danzig lead, which resulted in the death of both Fonzarella and the ESU officer, she would be blamed. Not officially, but within her precinct, if not in the broader close-knit department.

His face turned serious. “You really want to discuss this now?”

I don’t think I want to discuss it at all. Ever.
“Give it to me straight.”

“I’m not gonna lie to you, Karen. Yeah, it’s a problem. I’m not saying I think it’s right—I’m just as much to blame, if either of us is to blame for anything. That remains to be seen. But sometimes the facts don’t matter, you know what I mean?”

Vail took a deep breath. “I do.”

“Go home, get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll see just how bad things are in the morning once the dust settles. I’ll know as soon as I walk in tomorrow. Just …” He paused, shrugged. “Look, my time on the job tells me to expect the worst. Anything better than that’ll be a pleasant surprise. Okay?”

“Yeah.” Vail forced a smile, then said, “Thanks.”

She turned and walked away, not sure of what she was thanking him for: pushing her promotion to detective? Standing by her when things got difficult? Mentoring her? Being a friend? Maybe all of that.

But she saw where things were headed, and it was likely to get worse before it got better.
If
it got better. Even with rabbis like Russo and Protch solidly behind her, she did not think the opinions of an entire department could be changed. She was on the verge of becoming a pariah. Damaged goods.

And she had a feeling that asking Russo and Protch to remain her ally would tarnish their reputations as well. As Protch had told her regarding Thorne, things had a way of sticking to you by association. And it was hard to get the muck off. She could not do that to them.

And then there was Jonathan. After seeing Fonzarella’s twisted body on the ground floor of the apartment stairwell, she started to doubt the wisdom of working the front lines, being in the thick of violent crime on the streets of New York City. If something happened to her, her son would be in Deacon’s care. And right now, her husband was not a fit parent. Until he got his act together, she could not be comfortable with the prospect of Deacon raising her boy. Regardless of how office politics played out, Jonathan was her primary concern.

When she sat down in her car, she switched on the dome light and pulled Special Agent Mark Safarik’s business card from her wallet. On the back was his cell number. It was nine o’clock and she was sure he had left the office hours ago. But she called him anyway.