The Love Killings (21 page)

CHAPTER 49

Matt didn’t notice them at first. He had been sitting on a bench in the park across the street from his apartment building for more than half an hour. He had been drinking takeout coffee from Benny’s Café Blue and watching the day finally give in to night. He had been trying to process what he’d learned over the past forty-eight hours and figure out what came next.

But there they were. The blond man with the knapsack standing on the corner to his left. And the woman in the business suit keeping watch on the corner to his right. It was nothing more than a curiosity. But when Matt spotted the man with the shaved head and eyeglasses walking down Pine Street, crossing at the corner on Twenty-Third, and passing the blond man with nothing more than a simple nod, Matt knew with certainty that something was going on.

Both men had keys to the apartment next to Matt’s, indicating that they shared the place. Yet they hadn’t spoken to each other, they hadn’t said a word. Instead, they nodded the way people often do who work together.

Matt watched the man with the shaved head hurry into the brightly lit lobby and step into the elevator. He turned and checked on the man and woman posted on the corners. He didn’t think that they could see him with his bench set in the darkness between two street lights. He wasn’t even sure it mattered. But just in case, he pulled his scarf up to conceal the lower half of his face.

He sat back and settled into the bench. He had no idea or even the hint of an idea that what he’d picked up on had anything to do with him. He’d only seen these people once, and on three separate occasions. It was more like sitting at the bar last night and trying to decipher the relationships between the two young women drinking vodka martinis with the older man. It was an entertaining distraction. A mind game that provided a well-needed break from the harsh reality he was facing as a homicide detective on unfriendly soil.

It was completely innocent, completely pure—it was all of these things until he happened to look up and see the lights to his apartment switch on.

He felt his pulse quicken.

No doubt about it, the lights to his apartment on the fourth floor were on.

He lowered his gaze to the street as quickly as he could, eyeing the two watchers on the corners. He spent several moments sizing them up. Several moments assessing their presence. They were searching the sidewalks, picking through all those faces, their cell phones ready to warn the man with the shaved head at the first sighting. The woman in the business suit came off like a bean counter. And while the man with the blond hair appeared as if he worked out and was in decent physical shape, he looked as nervous as the woman.

Matt shook his head in disappointment, then drew his .45 and chambered a round as quietly as he could. Slipping the pistol into his jacket pocket, he lowered his scarf and walked to the other side of the square. When he reached Panama Street, he made a right, and then another, and started down the sidewalk. He was on Twenty-Third Street, heading for his apartment building and keeping his gaze locked on the man with blond hair.

He caught the man’s eyes picking him out of the crowd and watched him make a quick phone call. As Matt reached the corner and waited for the light to change, he glanced up at the sky and saw the windows to his apartment miraculously go dark. The blond man had started walking toward the building like everything was cool. The woman in the business suit had her eyes on Matt, but disappeared into the crowd heading north on Twenty-Fourth Street.

Matt picked up his pace, hitting the lobby doors just behind the man with blond hair. As he followed him inside, he pulled his gun out and knocked the man onto the marble floor. He went down hard, turned back for a look, and seemed confused and frightened. Matt aimed the .45 at his head, ready to fire.

“I’m FBI,” the man said in an anxious voice. “My ID’s in my pocket.”

“That’s the sad part,” Matt said. “I figured out who you were five minutes ago. Now dig your piece out of your jacket and slide it across the floor. And be cool, pal. You do anything stupid, it’ll be the last thing you do, got it?”

The man nodded, then pulled a Beretta M9 out of the holster on his belt and slid it forward. Matt picked up the pistol and jammed it into his left jacket pocket.

“Roll over onto your stomach.”

The man complied, and Matt frisked him from head to toe. Then he grabbed the man’s knapsack and took a step back.

“We’re going upstairs,” Matt said. “Here’s what you need to know. If you do anything that I take as threatening, and I mean anything, I’ll blow your fucking heart out of your chest. I think you know who I am. And I think you already know that I do what I say. It’s not your night, pal. It’s mine, got it?”

The man nodded again. “It’s your show, Jones. You have no worries.”

“Then get up, get in the elevator, and pretend you’re the Statue of Liberty.”

The man climbed to his feet and carefully stepped into the elevator. They rode up to the fourth floor where Matt beckoned the man into the hallway with the muzzle of his pistol.

“Where are we going?” the man asked.

“Your place.”

Matt gave him a push. Everything about the day had become lost in the gloom.

“Unlock your door,” he said. “And if there’s anyone in there like the guy with the shaved head, for your sake, you might want to tell him to back off.”

“I’ll tell him, Jones.”

Matt watched the man dig his keys out of his pocket and unlock the door. Anxiety and fear were showing on his face. Matt poked the door with the muzzle of his .45 and pushed it open slowly. The hinges creaked, and the blond man cleared his throat.

“It’s me, Pat. It’s Glen. You need to chill, man. You need to be cool.”

Matt followed him inside, checking the kitchen behind them, then taking a single step forward. The man with the shaved head was pointing another Beretta M9 at him from the master bedroom.

Matt gave him a long look and could tell that he was as panic-stricken as his friend.

“You’re shaking,” Matt said. “You’ll never be able to pull it off. You’ll either miss or hit your friend here, and I’ll put a slug in the center of your forehead. If you lower your piece to the floor, no one gets hurt tonight. If you don’t, you’ll miss the holidays. You’ll miss the rest of your life.”

The man with blond hair nodded. “Put the gun down, Pat. This is stupid. He’s a cop. Put the gun down so we can talk this out.”

The man in the bedroom was still trembling, and Matt doubted whether either one of these guys were anything more than techs who had been issued M9s, the federal standard. Matt watched him close his eyes and open them again. Sweat was percolating all over his face, and Matt took this as a bad sign.

“Your friend’s right,” Matt said. “Don’t get stupid. Just lower your gun to the floor and take two steps back.”

A moment passed. And then another. And then, finally, the man with the shaved head tossed the Beretta onto the carpet and stepped away.

“Thanks,” Matt said. “Now lean against the wall while I frisk you.”

The man did as he was told. After Matt took charge of the second pistol, he patted the man down and ushered him into the living room with his friend.

“On the couch,” Matt said. “And toss your IDs on the table. Let’s go. It’s been a long day, and all of a sudden, I’ve got a busy night.”

As the two agents dug their IDs out of their pockets and tossed them on the coffee table, Matt took in the room. There was a couch and a chair by a floor lamp, but that’s where any resemblance to a living room ended. Matt gazed at the long worktables and desk chairs facing ten LED video monitors mounted on the main wall. The worktables were equipped with digital recording devices, along with a laptop and telephone that went with each chair. The people working here were part of a surveillance detail.

Matt scooped up the two IDs and stepped back, even though he no longer considered either one of the men a threat.

He turned and quickly glanced at the LED screens. They were switched on, and despite the fact that the lights were off in the FBI’s apartment next door, the cameras were sensitive enough to pick up images in detail.

The FBI had been watching Matt since he first arrived in the City of Brotherly Love. From where he stood, every room in his apartment seemed to be covered from every angle.

It was a surveillance operation that Matt guessed the FBI used on a regular basis. This time Matt had been the fool who had trusted them.

As his situation began to settle in, as he chewed over his new, ever-changing reality, he wondered if there was a place in the human psyche beyond anger and rage. An emotion hiding somewhere deep inside a human being’s soul that was so frightful, so abhorrent, so palpable, that he could taste it in his mouth.

He skimmed over the IDs. The young man with blond hair was an assistant agent in charge by the name of Glen Kerry. The man with the shaved head, Pat Richards, was forty-two years old and shared the same title.

Matt tossed the IDs back on the coffee table and gazed at them. He was curious and wanted to understand.

“You guys are techs, right?” he said finally.

Both of them nodded.

“Why are you doing this?” Matt went on in a low voice. “I don’t get it. We’re on the same side.”

They looked at each other, but it was the man with blond hair who spoke up.

“I don’t know why we’re doing this,” Kerry said. “It’s not our job to know why. We’re just following orders, Jones.”

Matt turned to the man with the shaved head. “What were you doing in the apartment?”

“One of the cameras in your living room went down. I had to switch it out.”

Matt nodded, still curious. “Who do you guys work for? Who’s giving the orders? Who’s your boss?”

Kerry shrugged. “Same as yours, Jones. Assistant US Attorney Ken Doyle from the Department of Justice. He’s the one calling the shots.”

CHAPTER 50

Andrew loaded his bong with another hot pinch of that weed he thought had been cut with something. He struck his lighter and took a deep hit, unable to hold his breath for more than five or six seconds.

He set the bong down and sat for a few minutes watching his bedroom walls morph into sheets on a clothesline again. Once the wind settled down, he got up to check on his mother. He’d been looking in on her at the top of every hour since he murdered her. This time he sensed a difference the minute he pushed open her bedroom door.

The odor was so foul, so dense, it almost knocked him down. He looked at her on the bed. In the first hour of her death, he had cleaned her wound, covered it with a piece of gaffer tape, and dressed her in a jogging outfit. He’d also made the bed with clean sheets, unfolded the comforter, and laid her out on the far side of the mattress next to her table. Rigor mortis had begun to set in an hour or so later. Now she was stiff as a fence post, her skin ice-cold. But what struck Andrew most was the change to her face. It almost seemed like the skin around her mouth was shrinking. Her teeth were jutting out, her expression a hideous grimace that he could hardly look at.

She moved.

Andrew nearly leaped out of his skin. When he realized that it was the weed, he turned away from her and tried to collect himself. He had work to do. It had been nearly fifteen hours, and Reggie Cook’s corpse was still on the kitchen floor.

Andrew cracked open the windows, lowered the shades, and switched on his mother’s fake candles. Then he returned to his room for the Glade PlugIns he’d picked up at work. He was hoping to manage the stench with three scents: Sweet Pea & Lilac, Apple Tree Picnic, and something he smelled through the plastic and particularly liked called Hit the Road. Ripping open the packages, he spaced them out using three outlets on three different walls. After giving his mother a last look, he stepped into the hall and closed the door.

He had to keep moving. He had to stop wasting time and get it done.

He grabbed his spy glasses off the worktable, switched on the wireless camera mounted in the frames, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Fitting the glasses over his ears and nose, he gazed at the plastic shower curtain he’d ripped out of his bathroom to cover Reggie Cook’s dead body and crossed the room.

The odor was abhorrent. And when he lifted the shower curtain away, he realized that he’d waited too long. Reggie was an hour or two past ripe, and the wave of stench was overwhelming.

Andrew spread the plastic curtain on the floor, then wrapped a kitchen towel around his face and tied it behind his head. When he sprayed Reggie down with a can of air freshener, it didn’t seem to do any good.

The weed was playing with his head again, and he tried to keep himself together. He dragged the body across the floor and onto the shower curtain. Along the way, Reggie’s boxer shorts slipped off, and the big, hairy slob was naked now. His dick was the size of a donkey’s and standing on end, and Andrew tried not to look at it for too long. Thoughts about his mother seemed to come to life before his eyes, various scenarios between her and her animal boyfriend when her son wasn’t around.

Andrew’s mood darkened. He pulled the towel away, removed his spy glasses, and switched off the camera. There was no longer a good reason to record the event on video. After tonight he never wanted to see or think about Reggie Cook again.

He picked up his roll of gaffer tape, then wrapped and sealed the body in the plastic shower curtain. Reggie was so big and so stiff from rigor mortis it took almost a quarter of the roll to join the seams and keep everything tight.

It was late. Well after midnight.

Andrew stepped out the back door into the fresh air and casually gazed over the picket fence at Mr. Andolini’s house. The windows were dark; the old man and his wife, early risers. He climbed down the steps and walked over to the gate between the two properties. He was looking for Mr. Andolini’s wheelbarrow, which he usually kept by the back door. Andrew didn’t see the cart and began to worry until he spotted it by the woodpile.

He paused a moment and forced himself to become aware of his surroundings. The neighborhood appeared to be quiet. He didn’t see a single house with any lights on. Once he began to feel safer, he unlatched the gate, hurried through the yard, and took charge of the cart.

The wheel was squeaking and it wouldn’t stop, and Andrew started hyperventilating. He rolled the wheelbarrow through the gate and over to the steps. Then he ran inside, seized the wrapped-up corpse by its feet, and yanked the dead weight out the door. He could see, even feel, Reggie’s head bouncing off the steps. Somehow he managed to get the stiff corpse on the wheelbarrow, but the balance was off and the cart tipped over.

Andrew watched the body tumble onto the frozen lawn in horror. The idea that Reggie might break in half crossed his mind, and he almost screamed. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest so hard that he thought it might blow. He rolled the wheelbarrow closer, lifted the wooden body up with all his strength, and set it on the cart. After making a few adjustments, he lifted the handles and rolled the heavy load to the end of the driveway.

The squeaky wheel was absolutely unnerving. That dog barking on the next block didn’t help much either.

He could feel the panic. He could feel the dread reaching out for him from behind.

He started down the street with his massive load, hurrying toward the Delaware River at the end of the block as best he could. He knew that he was vulnerable. He knew that he was out in the open. If a car happened to drive down the street, everything about his life would be tossed into the weeds.

He filled his lungs with air and tried to walk faster and faster still. Each house he passed, each new set of dark windows, seemed to increase the terror chasing him down the street. But after five long minutes, he finally made it. He was rolling down the path and onto the dock. He was watching himself again. He could see himself reaching the very end, the cart’s handles rising into the air. He could hear himself grunting and groaning, and then that big splash Reggie made as he went for a last swim.

Andrew wasn’t too worried about the shower curtain staying rolled up. He doubted that gaffer tape was even waterproof. At this end of the river, fish and snapping turtles were still plentiful. What the water didn’t take away, the miracle of nature would.

Andrew’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, his high mellowing. There was enough light reflecting off the cloudy sky to see the corpse beginning to float downstream toward the city. The current appeared strong tonight. When the body finally sank in the frigid water, Andrew gave the city a last look with all its lights and tall buildings, then lowered the cart and wheeled it home.