Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (21 page)

Lucy pretended to cry. “
That’s what I was told,”
she insisted.
“If there was another reason, they didn’t share it with me.”

“What do you know about the Sons of Man?”

Lucy shrugged as if the question had little meaning to her.
Though I’m learning something new,
she thought.
“Not much. Some right-wing end-of-the-worlders, I think. Mostly stuff for conspiracy
buffs. Just some nutcases waiting for ‘the revolution’ to take over the world. To be honest, we’ve heard rumors, but they’re below the radar compared to guys like Osama and freelance terrorists like Malovo.”

Once she started talking, Lucy was a font of useless information, playing her role to the hilt as just a low-level flunky for a private security company—one of hundreds that sprang up after 9-11, run by former federal agents looking to improve their retirement prospects. Then the questioning stopped. She wondered if she’d simply bored her captors, but she also had to admit that interrogating her had not seemed to be the priority.

In fact, it had been many hours since she had seen Abu or heard any sounds except the traffic. She wondered if she would now be killed and sometimes quietly cried for real. She wanted to see her parents and brothers and say all the things she’d been meaning to say. And most of all, she wanted to feel Ned’s arms around her one more time and tell him that she was sorry that she would not be able to share a life with him, or give him the children they’d talked happily about teaching to ride.

Lucy felt the saint’s hand on her shoulder. “Poor child, I remember the horror of the
toca
—the despicable
tortura del agua
—during trial portions of the Inquisition. Some misguided
inquisidores
believed that the use of water for torture had a profound religious significance.” The saint sighed. “All these centuries and man still delights in the pain of others.”

“Who’s coming?” Lucy asked.

“You don’t know? I think you do. You recognize his voice. His face…his old face has haunted you for a long time. He is the deceiver…”

“Satan?”

The saint paused. “No…the Great Deceiver doesn’t like to do his own dirty work. He manifests himself through others, such as this one, whose face you once knew but won’t now. Still, he has the same evil spirit he has always had.”

“Why did you come to me now? Am I going to die?”

“That hasn’t been determined yet,” Teresa replied. “I’m here to tell you that you will again soon be faced with two choices. One is
safer and may still accomplish what you set out to do, but it is uncertain. The second is fraught with danger, and you may die even if you succeed.”

“Then why would I choose the second option?”

“Because he’s the only one who can stop himself.” Lucy felt the saint’s hand suddenly tense and then her grip fade as her voice and presence receded. “No matter what, child, I will be with you….
He
comes.”

“Wait, I—” Lucy’s reply was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Over the past several days, that sound had come to be associated with the terror of drowning, and she shivered involuntarily with fear.

Someone walked across the room toward her. He moved with a stiff gait, as if one leg lagged, and his breathing seemed wet and labored.

“Ah, the lovely Miss Karp,” he lisped. “I trust you have been enjoying Abu’s hospitality.”

Lucy recognized Erik’s voice and didn’t speak. A moment later, she felt the man grab the hood and yank it from her head. Although the light in the room was dim, after so long in the dark it still hurt her eyes and she blinked, trying to focus on the shape of the man in front of her.

Even as her sight cleared, she wondered if her mind was playing tricks on her. The man seemed to be wearing a silver mask. The mask was void of emotion one way or the other, just a blank slate, but the icy blue eyes beneath it glittered with malice.

“Why the disguise?” Lucy asked. “Do I know you?”

Erik tapped a shiny cheek with a finger. “Ah…‘that fate which condemns me to wallow in blood has also denied me the joys of the flesh. This face—the infection which poisons our love.’”

“Okay, I get it,” Lucy replied as if bored. “The name Erik…the quote…you think you’re the Phantom of the Opera. And who does that make me? Christine Daae? ‘Who was that shape in the shadows? Whose is that face in the mask?’ Either way you’re a freak, and I know who you are…Kane.” The name came out of her mouth as a curse.

Sociopath, former candidate for mayor of New York City, ter
rorist, and murderer, Andrew Kane seemed surprised. But then he threw back his head and laughed so hard that he began to cough. When at last he was able to stop, he lifted his mask and laughed again at the expression of repugnance on her face. “I see you like my new look. ‘Pity comes too late, turn around and face your fate, an eternity of this before your eyes!’”

“I don’t pity you,” Lucy said. “The inside of the man finally emerged on the outside, that’s all. But I do pity Andy having to live with you. Is he in there still, or have you managed to kill him and that last shred of decency from your twisted mind?”

Kane’s ravaged face contorted for a moment as though he struggled for control. Then his scarred lips twisted into a half smile. “No, Andy’s still with us, unfortunately, though if I could kill him without harming myself I would,” he said. “But that’s the sad thing about my particular version of schizophrenia—we’re all in this together.” He giggled. “What’s the old saying? ‘You can choose your friends, but you don’t get to choose your relatives.’ Well, with multiple personality disorder, I guess you could say you don’t get to choose your body-mates, either.”

Kane walked around behind Lucy, reaching out with his hand as he passed to caress her cheek and neck. “We’ll have a lot of time to catch up. But aren’t you the least bit curious what happened after we last saw each other…and why,” he said, leaning over so that his glistening cheek was next to hers, “I look like this?”

“Not really,” Lucy replied. “But I guess you’re going to tell me anyway.”

Kane smirked as he stood back up. “Well, you are a captive audience. You see after your friend Grale interrupted our ‘elopement,’ and he and I fell into the Harlem River, he managed to stick me quite deeply with that nasty long knife of his. Truly I was dead, sinking ever deeper into the depths…. I have no clear memory, except that at some point I was being carried upward as though by some unseen hand. I washed ashore, where I was discovered by a fisherman who I persuaded, with promises of riches, to take me to his house and to call a certain physician I knew. Apparently, it was touch and go for me for several weeks before they knew I would live, and by that time there was a problem with my new face.”

Kane replaced the silver mask. “You see, in order to change my appearance after escaping from your father’s man, Fulton, I arranged to have a face transplant. I’d seen a PBS show on a woman in France who’d been horribly disfigured in a car accident, but was then made whole with the transplant of a face from a cadaver. And I thought,
Why not me?
All very science fiction, and for a time it worked marvelously. The only problem is that facial transplants are still in their infancy and there are a lot of issues with the body rejecting the new muscle and skin. I was on heavy doses of antirejection drugs, but after my little run-in with Grale and subsequent dousing in that filthy river, it took a while to get the drugs, and by then they seemed to stop working. The transplant has been sloughing off ever since. So I’ve decided that the best thing to do is get my old face back. In fact, I’m spending millions for the latest technology. Those Pakistani doctors are geniuses, I tell you; they’re going to regrow my facial tissues from my own stem cells, which would solve the rejection issue. I’ll look like my old handsome self!”

“Handsome is as handsome does.”

The high-pitched boy’s voice surprised Kane and Lucy, who quickly tried to seize on his appearance. “Hi, Andy, are you there?”

Kane shook his head violently and staggered for a moment. Then looked up and smiled. “Sorry, Andy’s been sent to time-out.” He continued his patrol around the chair, a finger tracing the line of her cheek and stopping below her chin, which he lifted so as to stare into her eyes. “However, it could be some time for them to clone another me. So perhaps in the interim, I should choose a young masculine visage, perhaps that of a cowboy…you wouldn’t know any cowboys, would you, Lucy?”

When she didn’t answer, he held up a cell phone. “This is yours, I believe? I’ve been having some fun with it, texting your folks, who by the way think you’re on a spiritual retreat with some Indians. Kind of fun having a direct line to your dad. I’m sure I’ll find a way to work that into my plans.”

“Go to hell,” Lucy said, and tried to spit on him.

“I certainly hope so,” Kane replied as he dodged her attempt. “All my friends will be there. But until then I have so much to accomplish.”

Kane tried to make everything sound lighthearted. But Lucy thought his voice sounded strained, wound up like an old watch spring. She heard the saint’s voice in her mind.
“Because he’s the only one who can stop himself.”

“You’re a monster,” Lucy spat.

Interrupted, Kane looked at her hard for a moment before cocking his head to one side. “You’re not the first person to say that today. I wish everyone would quit spending so much time pointing out the obvious. I mean, of course I’m a monster, just look at me.” He stood back up and patted her on the cheek. “But you’ve yet to meet the real monster, my dear, soon…”

In the next instant, Kane howled with pain and rage as Lucy’s teeth clamped down on one of his fingers. She bit as hard as she could, ignoring the sickening crunch of bone and ligament and the taste of warm blood as she shook her head.

It took Kane a moment to recover from the shock and strike her with his other hand as hard as he could. The force of the blow knocked her and the chair to the floor, which for the most part saved her from the worst of his kicks as he went berserk. “You fucking bitch!” he screamed, clutching his mangled finger with his good hand. “I’ll kill you!”

“Andy, Andy, help me!” Lucy yelled. “You have to stop him!”

Kane kicked again, this time landing a blow to her knee that caused her to cry out in pain. “Andy, please! I need you! People need you!”

Lucy’s attacker prepared to stomp on her, but paused with his foot raised. Trembling, Kane lowered his foot and then spoke with a different voice, taking on the personality of a ten-year-old, Andy. “Lucy,” he said, “you have to get out of here!”

“I can’t, Andy, I’m tied up,” she replied. The boy sounded panicky and she was trying to talk as calmly as possible to settle him down. “Everything’s okay, just untie me.”

Andy began to do as he was told just as Abu came rushing through the door. The big man looked confused. “I heard a man yell,” he said. “What are you doing? Is it time to go?”

“I’m untying her,” Andy replied, his boyish voice high and squeaky. Suddenly he shuddered as if he’d touched a live wire.

Realizing her time with Andy was running out, Lucy pleaded. “Andy, tell me what he’s going to do…”

“I’ve been trying to tell your dad,” the boy whined, “but he’s not very good at riddles…”

“Andy! No more riddles, just tell me…”

“Stop me, you fool,” Kane shouted in his grown-up voice.

Not knowing what else to do, Abu drew a handgun and pointed it at Kane. “Stop or I’ll shoot,” he demanded.

“Go ahead,” said Andy. “Shoot! I double-dog-dare ya!”

“Not at me, you idiot!” Kane screamed. “Point the gun at the girl and shoot her if the boy says anything!”

Even more confused, Abu did as he was told. “Get away or she will die,” he said to Kane/Andy. He cocked the hammer back on the gun and took aim at Lucy’s head.

With a sigh, Andy’s head fell forward and he retreated into the mind as Kane regained control of the body they shared. Sweating visibly and flushed, he was nevertheless now calm as he looked at Lucy, but he spoke to his gunman.

“This woman is a witch,” he told the superstitious Yemeni. “If she ever speaks to me and I talk back to her like a little boy, it will mean she is casting a spell on me and you are to shoot her immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” the big man replied, and glanced at Lucy with fear. “But if she’s a witch, shouldn’t we just shoot her now?”

Kane smiled and patted the big man on the shoulder. “Not quite yet, Abu, but soon, though I think you and I can be a little more imaginative than something as fast as a bullet. Now, I’m going to go disinfect this little bitch’s bite and then we can be on our way. Untie her and get her to the car. Let our people know that it’s time to take their places. Chop chop, places to go, mad monks to see.”

A
CROSS THE RIVER FROM WHERE
A
NDREW
K
ANE STOOD LOOKING
at Manhattan, bathed in the copper coloring of an autumn afternoon, Clay Fulton pulled the Lincoln over to the curb on Waverly Place, and Karp stepped out. A few last leaves, yellow and red, hung from the trees in Washington Square Park, but most of the branches were empty, silently waiting for winter, which reminded Karp that Thanksgiving was approaching.

Just one week after the start of the Maplethorpe trial,
he thought.
The jurors won’t be in the mood to listen to any more than they have to, which should work in our favor.

Jury selection was set to begin in a few days, and then they’d dig in up to the holiday break.
Wish it was you, not me, Stewbie
, he thought as he looked up at the old brick building where his friend had once lived.
And died
, he thought.
The question is how. And if it was murder, why?

He hoped to have an answer to the first question in a few minutes from Jack Swanburg. A retired forensic pathologist, Swanburg was one of the founders of an eclectic little group of crime solvers called the Baker Street Irregulars. Mostly comprised of scientists from a variety of disciplines, as well as retired law enforcement officers, the Baker Street Irregulars used their expertise to assist
agencies in solving difficult cases. It might be an entomologist—a scientist who studies insects—to determine the time of death by the maturity of fly larvae on a cadaver; or a geophysicist using a ground-penetrating radar machine to locate a body beneath ten inches of cement. Their strength was the variety and depth of their knowledge in so many different fields, so that when they put their heads together, they were—as Swanburg liked to say—“a many-headed Sherlock Holmes.”

Marlene had actually first met the group several years before when a member of the group, Charlotte Gates, was helping John Jojola solve a series of child murders in New Mexico. Although they were initially reluctant to work with “amateur sleuths,” the group’s professionalism and successes had convinced first Marlene, and then Karp, that they weren’t the usual volunteer detectives. And since that time, various members of the group, usually with Swanburg leading the team, had provided invaluable assistance to Karp with several cases that might not have been won without them.

After meeting with Stewart Reed’s mother and sister at their home, Karp had called Swanburg, who caught the next plane out of Denver, Colorado, where the group was based. They’d talked about Reed over dinner at the loft that night with Kenny Katz and Marlene.

Swanburg, who at nearly seventy years old looked a bit like Santa Claus out of uniform with his full white beard, round belly, and bright red bulb of a nose, mostly listened. Then, wiping a last bit of Marlene’s famous marinara sauce from around his mouth, he sat back, his eyes on the ceiling and chubby fingers tapping a rhythm on his ample stomach.

“I think you’re right in that a suicide doesn’t make sense from a psychological perspective,”
he’d said at last.
“A practicing Catholic, strong family ties, no history or suspicion of clinical depression or bipolarity. By all accounts, he was thinking rationally and productively at work, and as his cocounsel Kenny here noted, he was looking forward to the opportunity to win this one, not dreading it.”

Swanburg scratched his head and thought for a moment before
adding,
“I’d like to see those shoes. In fact, you might want to keep them as potential evidence.”

“Already done,”
Karp replied.
“I’ll have them delivered.”

“Good, I figured as much, but you are getting a bit long in the tooth and you never know when your horse will quit running.”
The old man laughed.
“While we’re at it, I don’t suppose you’ve thought to obtain a court order to have Mr. Reed’s body exhumed?”

Karp nodded grimly.
“I asked his mother’s permission this morning. Stewbie is currently at the Beth-Israel Hospital morgue.”

Swanburg raised his eyebrows.
“Not the Medical Examiner’s Office?”

Karp paused, then shook his head.
“I just thought it might be a good idea to keep this quiet. The ME’s office isn’t exactly Fort Knox when it comes to leaks to the press, and I don’t want this splashed across the front page of the
Post.”

“I understand,”
Swanburg said, and then looked sideways at his host.
“But there’s more to it than that.”

“Yes,”
Karp acknowledged.
“If there’s something that was missed by the assistant medical examiner who did the autopsy, I want to know what it was and how it could have been overlooked without raising suspicions.”

“Enough said,”
Swanburg replied.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll head to my hotel and get some rest. I’m not getting any younger and need my beauty sleep before I head over to Beth-Israel in the morning.”

The next afternoon, Karp received a call from Swanburg.
“I’ve finished my examination of Mr. Reed,”
the old man said.

“Anything interesting?”
Karp asked.

“Interesting? Yes. Definitive? We shall see
,” Swanburg replied.
“But before I say much more, I want to check out a couple of hunches at Mr. Reed’s apartment. Think we could meet there in a couple of hours after you get off work?”

Fulton had just joined Karp on the sidewalk when a yellow cab pulled up behind the sedan. Swanburg emerged from the cab with a briefcase and a pair of dress shoes in an evidence bag. “Evening,
gents,” the merry old man greeted them. “Butch, did I ever tell you one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes quotes, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’?”

“Don’t recall it, but it’s a good one,” Karp replied. “Why?”

Swanburg pointed to the door of the building. “Let’s go find out,” he said.

The three men walked into the building and up the stairs, where they were met at Reed’s apartment by the building superintendent, who expressed his condolences. “He was a great tenant and real gentleman.” Then he asked when they thought it would be all right to advertise the vacant apartment. “The cops told me I had to leave it as it was that night. But the building owners are all over me to get it rented.”

Karp frowned. “We’ll let you know.” It came out as a growl, and the superintendent made a fast excuse and left.

The interior of the apartment was indeed as Karp remembered it. Reed had kept his home as immaculate as he’d kept his clothes. About the only thing out of place was the overturned stool beneath where Reed’s body had hung.

Swanburg carefully walked around the perimeter of the room to reach the windows on the far side, where he opened the blinds to let the late afternoon sun pour in. He then retraced his steps to the living room entrance and knelt, looking back across the hardwood floors. Nodding, he looked up and said, “Butch, step over here, I’d like you to see something…. Now kneel down and look back. Notice anything?”

Karp did as asked and immediately saw that the wood of the floors was buffed to spotless perfection—except that in the reflection of the sun on the shiny surface he could see two nearly parallel tracks that led from the doorway to the overturned chair. “Scuff marks,” he said.

“Bravo!” Swanburg replied. He handed the bag containing the shoes to Karp, who removed them gently and looked at the marks on the toes and tops.

“I believe that if I can scrape up enough of what’s on the floor, it will be an exact match for the polish on the shoes,” Swanburg said.
“Of course, you can scuff shoes by kicking something or by someone stepping on your toes. But imagine what it takes to get those marks on the top of the shoes. And by the way, under a microscope, it’s clear that the scuff marks all run in the exact same direction, and approximately for the same length, from the ankle to the toes.”

“Which means the scuff marks were caused by one incident,” Karp said, leaping forward in the logic. “They’re all on the top and toes of the shoes…which means he was lying on his stomach and was dragged across the floor.”

“Precisely, my dear Watson.” Swanburg beamed as he stood up and walked over to the stool. He pulled out a tape measure and noted the distance from the top of the seat to the bottom of a leg. “Clay, do you remember in your report how far Stewart’s body hung above the floor?”

“I don’t recall the exact number, but I do know my guy wrote it down.”

“The report said nineteen inches from toes to floor,” Swanburg replied, and then to their confused looks added, “From the seat of the chair to the floor is eighteen inches right on the nose. But the deceased was left swinging an inch higher than that. So either Stewart stood on the stool and then was able to jump up and stick his head through the noose before coming down…and then somehow kicked over a stool that was an inch lower than his toes…”

“Someone tried to make it look like he hung himself,” Fulton growled.

“Looks that way,” Swanburg agreed, “which coincides with the evidence that Stewart was dead before he was hung.”

“How do you know that?” Karp asked.

“From my examination of the body this morning,” Swanburg answered, as he opened his briefcase and brought out several photographs that he placed on the kitchen counter. “Whoever did this had a pretty good idea of how to hide a murder by making it look like a suicidal hanging. For instance, there was the mark left by the rope that was used—a length of common clothesline.”

He pointed to one of the photographs. “Usually, the marks differ for a hanging, such as in the case of a suicide or execution, and a murder by manual strangulation, which would be the case if
someone was garroted from behind. With a strangulation, the mark left by the rope would be horizontal across the throat and neck, as enormous pressure is generated from behind, such as in this photograph of a murder victim.” He pointed to a different photograph. “However, in hanging, we see the mark starts at the front of the neck, but goes up at an oblique angle and behind the ear, as you can see in this photograph of a suicide. The different shape and placement of the mark is caused by the weight of the body pulling the rope up at an angle.”

“What about with Stewbie?” Karp asked.

Swanburg pointed to a third photograph. “This is Mr. Reed.”

Karp and Fulton peered down where the old man pointed. The photograph of the dead man’s profile showed a slight reddish purple mark that began at the front of his throat and went up at an angle under his jawbone and behind his ear.

“So he did hang,” Fulton noted.

“Slight correction, he was hung,” Swanburg replied. “But that’s not what killed him, though it took me a little bit of thinking to figure out what about this was bothering me. Then it came to me. The mark you see is in the correct position consistent with hanging, but it’s not the right kind or size of mark.”

“What do you mean?” Karp asked.

“Well, on examination, one sees that the mark is more of an abrasion than a bruise,” Swanburg said. “The sort of wear and tear that you might expect on dead flesh. But there is almost no ecchymosis—that is, there was very little bleeding into and beneath the skin around where the rope made this mark.”

“Etchy-moses?” Fulton shook his head as he stumbled over the word.

“Yes, ecchymosis. Let me back up a minute. Usually when a person commits suicide in the manner someone wanted us to think Mr. Reed did—that is, climbing on top of that stool, fastening a noose around his neck, and then kicking the stool over and dropping—death occurs almost instantaneously due to luxation, or fracture of the cervical vertebrae, most often at the C1–C2 juncture. It’s virtual decapitation, without the body and head separating.

“As you know, when a person dies, their heart stops beating,”
Swanburg said, assuming his detached-scientist manner of speaking that made him an effective witness in court. “And if their heart stops beating, no more blood is being pumped, and if no more blood is being pumped, there can be no bruising, or more specifically, no ecchymosis, which occurs when blood vessels rupture and blood flows into subcutaneous tissue. So in the case of luxation, you might well only see the sort of abrasion that we have with Mr. Reed.”

“I’m sensing a ‘however’ here,” Karp said.

“Yes, indeed, and sorry if I’m taking the long road to home here,” Swanburg replied, “but I’ll get there in the end.”

“By all means, continue,” Karp replied, “I’m fascinated.”

“Well, thank you, and there is a ‘however.’ Mr. Reed did not die from luxation. He died from asphyxiation, which in and of itself is not suspicious. In some cases of hanging suicides where there is no luxation, the victim either asphyxiates, strangles to death, or there’s congestive apoplexy, which is when the pressure of the ligature around the neck prevents the return of blood from the brain and death occurs. But either way, the body reacts violently; there is a struggle for air and life—even if the victim wants to die, the body wants to live. There is thrashing around, kicking, perhaps even reaching with one’s hands to remove the cord. In any event, the blood vessels rupture and we see the extensive vivid purple bruising around the rope caused by ecchymosis.”

Swanburg tapped the second photograph of the suicide hanging victim, and then the photograph of Reed. “See the difference? The suicide died of asphyxiation, not luxation—note the large area of purple bruising, really nasty looking. Now look at the photograph of Stewart.”

“Not even close,” Fulton said. “Damn, how did we miss that?”

Swanburg shrugged. “I suspect that at the time the mark on Stewart’s neck was easier to see and it was in the correct position. No reason to suspect a setup.”

Karp looked up from the photograph into Swanburg’s sky blue eyes. “So if hanging didn’t cause the asphyxiation, what did?”

“Good question,” Swanburg said. “And one I asked myself after I realized he was dead before he was hung. I still don’t know the exact agent of cause, but I believe he was poisoned.”