The Blue Executions (14 page)

Once he regained his composure, he sat back down and decided to read the letter.  He read it slowly; not wanting to miss any important details.  He thought back to the instructions
which Chief Courtney had given him. 
Any more letters from this guy, you need to call me immediately
.  McGregor took his cell phone from where it was clipped to his belt and snapped two pictures—one of the letter; the other of Tatum’s memo book.

McGregor shook his head in disbelief.  He briefly contemplated speaking to his editor but decided
that he would keep his word.  He retrieved the business card that Chief Courtney had given him and punched in the number.  His hands were trembling badly, making the simple task of placing a phone call difficult.  The phone was answered on the third ring.  “Chief of Department’s office, Captain Lewandowski speaking.”

“Yes hello Captain,”
McGregor’s voice seemed to shake a bit.  “My name is Brian McGregor.  I’m a reporter with the…”

“I know who you are Mr. McGregor.  What can I help you with?”

McGregor felt the Captain had been rude, cutting him off, but he didn’t have time to worry about that right now.  He decided to get right to the point.  “I need to speak with Chief Courtney immediately.”

Lewandowski, clearly not a fan of the reporter, spoke in a very patronizing manner. “He’s not in yet, Mr. McGregor.  He’ll be in around noon.  I’ll leave him a message that you called.”

This was not acceptable.  “No captain; this is an emergency.  I want you to call him on his cell phone and tell him that I called.”

Lewandowski, a veteran of the NYPD for over thirty years was not about to be ordered around by a civilian—especially not a reporter.  “Mr. McGregor, I already told you
, I will give him your message when he gets in.”

“Wait…Captain, you don’t understand,” began the reporter, trying to plead his case. 
“Chief Courtney gave me this number and told me if anything happened to call him immediately…and something did happen.  He’d want to know about this right now, not in a few hours from now…trust me!”

Apparently not swayed, “I told you I would give him your message, Mr. McGregor and I will.  Good bye.”  The line went dead.

McGregor was beside himself with frustration.  He hung up the phone trying to figure out what to do until noon when Chief Courtney would get his message.  He read the note over and over again, making sure that he wasn’t missing any important details.  He was amazed at how sick the person who wrote this letter must be—the guy was actually trying to justify his actions.

“Brian, you have a phone call on line two,” announced Doris Williams, another reporter in his team.
  He looked up in response.  “The phone call…I think it may be a prank.”

He understood why she
might think that.  After all, there would be no reason for her to think the Chief of the New York City Police Department would be calling him. 
Thank God that captain came to his senses and called Courtney.

“Thanks Doris.  Tell Chief Courtney I
’ll be with him in a second.”  McGregor did his best to sound insightful and mysterious at the same time.

Williams had a confused look on her face and placed the call on hold.  “Chief Courtney?  It’s not Chief Courtney.”

McGregor felt slightly embarrassed.  He could feel his face go flush and his ears begin to burn.  “Oh, sorry Doris.  I’m expecting Chief Courtney to call so can you please just take a message and tell whoever is on the line that I’ll call them back when I get the chance.”

She agreed and relayed the message to the caller.  She waved her arm to get McGregor’s attention and once again placed the call on hold.  “Brian, he says
that he needs to speak to you right away.  He says it’s urgent and that he’s sure you’ll want to talk to him.  He said to tell you that it is the Blue E calling.”

She said it with confusion in her voice but McGregor was not confused.  It was totally clear to him.  The color in his face went to pale and the nausea that he had experienced when opening the letter had once again returned.

“Brian…are you okay?  You don’t look well.”

He took in a deep breath.  “I’m fine Doris.
”  He forced a smile trying to convince her but remained in a stunned silence.

“What do you want me to tell him Brian?”

“Nothing Doris, thanks.  I’ll take the call.”

He stared at the phone for a few seconds before getting the nerve to pick it up.  He once again drew a deep breath.  “Brian McGregor speaking, how can I help you?”

“Hello Mr. McGregor.  What a pleasure it is to finally speak to you.  I have been a fan of your column for many years now.  I find you to be a very fair and reasonable reporter.”

McGregor concentrated on the man’s voice.  He believed him to be Caucasian but he couldn’t be sure.  As the man spoke, McGregor removed a digital recorder from his top drawer and set it to record.  He had no idea how well the recording would come out but he had to try.  He was sure Chief Courtney would
’ve wanted him to do his best to record the conversation.  “Thank you for your support Mr…?”  He let it hang out there hoping the man would reveal himself.

“Just call me the Blue Executioner,” he replied
.  “Have you received both of the letters that I sent you?”

“Yes…yes I did.  As a matter of fact I just received the second letter only a few moments ago.”

“Good.  I assume the blood on Officer Tatum’s memo book had time to dry?”

The thought was repelling to McGregor, yet he forced himself to open his desk drawer to examine the memo book.  He stared down at the brown stain; he hadn’t really noticed it earlier.  McGregor didn
’t want to have a conversation with this man but he knew it would be best to engage his as look as possible.  “Yes.  It’s dry.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Doris Williams attempting to get his attention.  He looked over as she was holding the receiver of a telephone out to him.  She whispered, “
This time it
is
Chief Courtney.”

As quickly as his hand would allow, McGregor scribbled ‘tell him I
’ll call him back—get a number’ on a pad and held it out to her.  Doris appeared thoroughly perplexed but complied with McGregor’s wishes.

He turned his attention back to the phone call.  The voice on the other end on the line continued.  “Good.  I’m glad you
received them.  I sent the memo book this time so you knew that I wasn’t trying to take credit for someone else’s work.  I must offer you an apology.  I should’ve sent you a memento from officer Long as well so you knew that my first letter was not a prank.  I assume that you must have thought it was a prank since you never made mention of me or the letter in your column.  Am I correct Mr. McGregor?” quizzed the man.

Unsure how he should respond, McGregor just went with it.  “Yeah, well to be perfectly honest, I thought it was a prank.  You have no idea the types of letters I receive here.”  He hoped the man would accept this excuse.

“That’s what I figured.  Well I want you to know that you have my permission to print both of those letters in their entirety.  I believe your readers have a right to know that there is someone who will avenge the average citizen when they are brutally murdered by those who have been empowered to protect them.  Any police officer, who commits a murder and then hides behind their badge to justify it, is no more than a murderer—that badge means nothing.  I will be back in touch with you in a few weeks after the next blue execution.  Good bye Mr. McGregor.”  With that, the line went silent.

“No!  Wait, don’t hang up!” pleaded McGregor.  “Are you still there?”

He was not.

“God damn it!”  McGregor slammed the phone down in a fit of anger.  He buried his face in his hands
momentarily; when he looked up he noticed Doris Williams and a couple of the other reporters staring at him.  His anger gave way to embarrassment.  The other reporters returned to their own business except for Williams.

“Is everything okay, Brian?”

He spoke softly.  “Yeah Doris, thanks.  Did Chief Courtney leave a phone number where I can reach him?”

She handed him a page torn out from her notepad with the number scribbled on it.  “He seemed to be pretty taken aback that you didn’t take his phone call right away.  That must’ve been some phone call for you to keep the Chief of Police on the back burner.”

McGregor ignored what he took to be a subtle hint to find out what he was up to.  He accepted the phone number from her and thanked her without explaining his actions.  He stood up and began to walk toward a vacant editor’s office.

“I th
ink you should know Chief Courtney didn’t seem to be pleased that you didn’t take his call immediately.”

“Thanks Doris.  I appreciate the heads up.”

McGregor closed the door behind him and made the phone call.  Courtney picked up on the first ring.  “Chief Courtney.”

His mouth, once again dry, “Chief Courtney, this is Brian McGregor.  I’m sorry I couldn’t take
your call before but I was on the phone with him.”  McGregor felt a mix of excitement and queasiness.  “He called me here at the newsroom.”

Courtney
apparently wanted to be sure he was not misinterpreting what the journalist was telling him.  “Who called you?” Courtney demanded.

“You know who Chief.  I can’t talk here.  There are a lot of eyes on me right now.  There
’s something else too.  He sent me another letter with something else enclosed in the envelope.  Can I meet you somewhere?  Now…if at all possible?”

“Meet me in my office in one hour.  I’m
coming from home.”

*

Courtney hung up the phone after McGregor agreed to meet him.  Although the reporter never gave a hint as to what was enclosed in the letter, Courtney had an uncanny feeling that he knew what it was —the only piece of property belonging to Police Officer Christopher Tatum that was not recovered at the scene of the homicide—his memo book.

The thought of a serial killer targeting uniformed police officers was surreal; even to
New York City’s highest ranking uniformed officer.  Courtney stepped out of the shower, toweled off and shaved.  He stared at himself in the mirror; searching his eyes for a way to convince the reporter not to take the story public. The circles under the bottom of his eyes were darker than days past.  Sleeping had become a challenge.  Courtney thought staying home until noon today might allow for him to catch up on some much needed rest; clearly that plan did not come to fruition.

He put on a beige suit with a light blue shirt and a tan and light blue striped tie.  A quick study of himself in the mirror
, and he decided that he was presentable.  He left his Westchester home and got into the passenger side of the dark blue unmarked department auto.  He bid good morning to the first grade detective that was assigned as his driver and immediately got onto his cell phone.  He called his office with specific instructions; to have his top council—the same group of men that met with him the last time Brian McGregor came to the office—report there forthwith.

*

It was shortly after eleven a.m. when McGregor finished explaining the details of the phone call and turned the letter over to the Chief of the NYPD.  McGregor had done his best to remember the exact words used by the man; as the audio recording was at times, inaudible.  He knew how important it was that this man be apprehended as soon as possible; especially with the threat of another murder within the next few weeks hanging over their heads.  He also consented to having his home phone and cell phone tapped; he couldn’t consent to the same for his work place.  That would not be up to him and the top brass at the police department didn’t want the top brass at the newspaper knowing about these communications just yet.

“Thank you Mr. McGregor,” Courtney began.  “Your assistance and discretion in this case is vital to us.  We can’t thank you enough.” 

Courtney reached and offered the reporter his hand, which was accepted.  As they shook hands, “and please, if he should call again, any time, day or night, call me right away.”  Courtney then showed the reporter to the door.

*

McGregor had been trying to think of a way to bring up the letters since he arrived at the office but hadn’t been able to do so.  He knew that since he was now being shown out of the office, he needed to open his mouth right now or not at all.  His stomach was nervous; he knew Courtney’s reaction wouldn’t be favorable.

“Chief Courtney,” he began just as the door was being opened for him.  “Did you see the headlines of the News today?”

Courtney had read the article and hoped the rank and file police officers wouldn’t believe the story.  “No, I haven’t had the chance to see the papers yet this morning.  Why do you ask?”

“They’re my competition, Chief. 
They’re running with my story,” he explained.  “I have all of the facts as well as the letters.  I’m afraid that I may need to speak with my editor about it and be guided by him.”

“You can’t do that Brian,” Courtney began to lecture.  “You don’t understand the chaos that would cause.  The police would be afraid to do their jobs.  It would put eight million citizens of New York City at risk.”