DEAD MAN'S JUSTICE - A Place of Evil (Stone & McLeish Thriller Series of Stories Book 2) (25 page)

Chapter 56

Sometime around three p.m. in the afternoon Ramirez was in the precinct and he got a call from Officer Christine O’Hara. The Officer was attending a call out from a woman walking her dog in Fort Greene Park.

‘Ramirez here, what can I do for you Officer?’

‘We have an unconscious girl fitting the description of Tamika Achebe. The first girl to go missing?  She was found lying on a park bench by a Mrs. Lusardi who was out with her dog. Sir, the park is two streets away from her home.’

Ramirez turned to Finch and told him they have the first girl. Stone listened intently.

Ramirez went back to the call, ‘Is she alive Officer?’

‘Yes Sir. She’s unresponsive though, appears to have been drugged but...she is alive.’

‘Has she been...’ Ramirez halted for a moment realizing that Stone was sitting in the office, but it was his duty to ask the question. ‘...was she sexually assaulted?’

‘Can’t say for sure Sir,’ said O’Hara. ‘There’s some evidence of blood down there but I’ll have to leave that to the docs.’

‘Have uniforms tape the area off O’Hara and keep people away at all costs, especially the media, you understand?’

‘Perfectly Sir.’

‘When is she being shipped out to hospital? And where will she be taken?’

‘Any minute Sir, they’re loading the gurney now, she’ll go to King’s County.’

‘Next of kin Officer?’ asked Ramirez.

‘The mother’s here now, news has spread pretty fast, the dog lady knows someone who knows the family etc. etc. You never saw someone so happy who couldn't stop crying. She’s going with Tamika in the ambulance.’

‘Good job O’Hara, I’ll be with you in thirty minutes max.’

Finch was already placing a colored pushpin to mark the location where the girl been found in the park on the map below Tamika’s details on the wall. He walked over to Stone and put a hand on his shoulder, ‘She’s alive, Stone.’

Stone knew what finch was trying to do, he stared out of the window, it didn’t ease the deep seated panic that started in his stomach and filled his whole chest with acrid bile.

Ramirez arranged for a CSI team to accompany him to the scene, he told Finch to keep working on the leads that they had. Stone stood up and said he’s going with him. Ramirez shot him down, ‘The best place for you is right here Stone, I know it’s tough but you’ll only get in the way.’

Stone knew he was right, but he needed to do something soon he thought, otherwise he’d go crazy. The words ‘sexually assaulted’ were playing over in his head.

Mac left the house the same way as he entered; he walked calmly over to the rental and drove away. He waited until he was a few streets clear of the house before sending the information to Finch. He text the plate of the car and attached a photo of the dead man and then called Stone.

Stone picked up and said, ‘Finch just got the info buddy, you okay?’

‘Never mind about me, how are you holding up? Any news?’

‘They’ve just found the first girl that went missing. She’d been drugged Mac but she’s alive. Ramirez is heading over there right now.’

Mac didn’t know what the right response was, Stone would be so worried about Laura, the only news he wanted to hear was that she was home, safe and well. ‘That’s something mate?’ he said. Stone didn’t answer. He was still deep in thought, yet he was trying to stay positive.

‘I guess so,’ he said eventually.

‘I’ve got one more lead to follow up mate, then I’ll be back, we’ll find Laura, I promise.’

Before Stone could answer he was gone. The line went dead.

Tariq worked fast. He’d already run the plate number from Mac’s text through the DMV database and came up with the same owner’s details as the SUV from the hotel, the plate numbers were sequential.

Tariq ran over to where Finch and Stone were sitting. ‘Look Sir,’ he was addressing Finch. ‘Plate 003MLF is also…’ Finch shushed Tariq with his finger over his mouth. Luckily Stone was deep in thought and was looking out of the window and hadn’t heard what Tariq was saying yet. ‘… I mean the vehicle is registered to
‘Maloof Enterprises.’

The name Maloof jerked Stone out of his trance, Stone muttered, ‘Maloof, Maloof, where have I heard that name before?’

Ramirez hadn’t left yet. He came back into his office to collect his cell phone from the desk and heard Stone repeating the name.

‘From me,’ he said. ‘He’s the guy that was putting the squeeze on me. He’s bad news, how does he fit in?’

‘The car that Mac saw two guys putting a dead body into just now, belongs to a man called Maloof,’ Tariq explained.

‘We’ve got a bigger problem than we thought,’ said Ramirez. ‘Where’s Mac now?’

‘He called in to say he had one more lead to chase, then he rang off,’ said Stone. 

‘Shit.’

Officer James O’Reilly came through the double doors, he needed to open both to get through. He was carrying a piece of paper and handed it to Finch. Finch studied the information and he also said, ‘Shit.’

‘What is it?’ asked Ramirez.

‘The mug shot,’ he said. ‘The photo of the guy sent in by Mac, the bomber, its Abdul Habib, otherwise known as ‘Scarface’. He’s a known assassin and wanted over here and in just about every capital in Europe.’

Stone put his head in his hands. He’d just been told that the man Mac was chasing, the man who bombed the Deli, was a known assassin.

‘There’s something real funny going on here, if they’d have wanted that girl Tamika dead, she would be, but she’s not , don’t give up hope Stone. Something will break. I might be able to get some info out of her at the hospital. But, one thing is for sure, Mac is in real danger,’ said Ramirez looking around the room. Everyone was hanging on his every word. ‘I gotta go, but somehow Mac must be warned off pursuing these guys.’

Stone tried to call Mac’s cell phone several times but it appeared to be switched off.

He now had something else to worry about.

Stone didn’t think it was possible but just for a minute he was as equally worried about the danger Mac was facing as he was about Laura. Their association went back almost ten years. They were business partners, but because of the scrapes and ordeals they went through in post-war
Iraq, and more recently in Trinidad, they were much more than that.

When Stone was twenty five, and not long out of university, his father, who had amassed a small fortune on Wall Street, wanted his son to reap the benefit of his wealth before he passed on. He bequeathed a sum of money to him that he could not access until his thirtieth birthday. The other proviso was that he must invest a minimum of fifty percent in a business of his choice. Construction was what he knew and loved and after returning from Iraq he planned to set up his own contracting business, but he wanted an equal partner, and it was a no-brainer. Mac had been invalided out of the army six months before Stone left. He received a large sum in compensation for his injuries from the contractor - that he had been seconded to - clearing and refurbishing buildings and facilities,  the contractor that Stone had worked for.

On one particular day, after the team sweeping an area for re-building had left, saying it had been neutralized, Mac checked it over for himself before handing it over to Stone. There was an explosion from inside the building. Mac survived but ended up in a wheelchair.

It was widely regarded that Mac had saved Stone’s life that day by taking the hit himself.

The doctors told Mac that he would never walk again. He spent months in hospital in
Germany and was due for discharge when he began to get feelings back in his legs. Somehow they had misdiagnosed his injuries, a swelling next to his spine reduced and within weeks he had made a miraculous recovery. He kept the compensation and remembered Stone’s intention to start his own contracting company. They met up in New York, spent some time putting plans together and opened up for business in the Caribbean in 2006. He was more than a business partner.

Ramirez faced a barrage of reporters when he tried to leave the precinct and wondered why the hell he hadn’t taken the back door. There was at least three TV crews camped out on the sidewalk and several radio station’s vans also. Lt. Grolnick was standing at the top of the steps and had half a dozen microphones stuck in his face, he was fencing questions from the media about a rumor that one of the young girls had been found in Fort Greene Park.  There was a cacophony of voices asking questions,
‘Is she dead?’ ‘Has she been raped?’ ‘Which girl is it?’ ‘Can you make a statement? ‘Do you think there’ll be another two girls Officer?’

Grolnick was holding up his hands saying ‘One at a time guys, please one at a time.’

Ramirez thought he would leave him to it and crawled past shielding his face from the cameras. Until he heard someone call him out by name.

Only it wasn’t a reporter.

‘Senior Detective Ramirez?’

He took one look and knew immediately who they were but he asked the question anyway.

“Who are you?’

Two smartly dressed men in dark raincoats, both well over six feet, approached him from the under the shadow of a tree and held out their badges. One guy was broader, stockier than the other. He had a round face and slicked back hair.

He spoke first.

‘FBI.’ The agents held up their badges, ‘I’m Agent Hunter Wade and this is Agent Geoff Gray.’

‘What’s this all about? I’m already late for a crime scene.’

Agent Wade took out a wad of photographs from his inside pocket and showed them to Ramirez. ‘You know this man?’

‘Shit yeah. Why?’

The photos were of Mac.

Ramirez thumbed through them; he saw there was a timestamp on each of the photos. The first had Mac walking up the driveway to a house at 14:05:15, in the second, moments later, he was opening a side gate to the back of the property, and in the third he was leaving the house thirty minutes later at 14:36:33 p.m.

‘Where were these taken?’ asked Ramirez.

Gray, the younger, bald guy answered with a smirk all over his skinny face. ‘Afraid we can’t tell you that Detective. If you know him, tell him to stay out of our way, and stay away from the house. He’ll get himself killed, or worse, ruin three month’s work. That includes you Detective.’

‘Screw your investigation. Where’s Mac now? Do you know?’

‘We’re not at...’

‘...liberty to say, yeah, I’ve heard it all before.’ Ramirez sarcastically finished off the ‘time old’ statement banded by all FBI Agents. ‘He’s in real danger guys,’ he spat. ‘What are you doing about it if you can’t tell me stuff.’

‘How do you know he’s in danger?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.’ Ramirez’s sarcasm hit the spot again. ‘Now, what are you doing?’

Gray’s expression changed slowly from a smirk to an indignant grin.

‘Let’s just say we’re keeping an eye on him,’ he said.

Ramirez was also getting angry and impatient. ‘Look, We’ve just found one of the missing girls, half-dead, drugged up to the eyeballs on a park bench, four more are still missing, this guy Mac was almost blown to bits yesterday and you can’t tell me a single thing, if anything happens to him and you don’t stop it ‘...cos of some greater cause’,’ Ramirez made the quotes sign with his fingers, ‘I’m coming after you, got it?’ Ramirez slammed the photos into Agent Wade’s chest and took off for the squad car waiting for him by the curb.

Wade looked across at skinny face with a condescending smile as he was putting the photos back in his pocket.

The FBI Agents left as covertly as they came.

Chapter 57

Lt. Grolnick stuck his head around the door of the squad room complaining about the media parked up outside the precinct. ‘They’re like vultures,’ he said. ‘Once they get a sniff of a body or a potential headline, they’re like a pack of wolves baying for a kill. If we have something for them we’ll issue a press release, don't they know that?’ he disappeared as fast as he came and everyone returned to their work.

‘Wolves or vultures, doesn’t matter, they’re all the same,’ Finch chuntered to himself.

The room returned to a quiet hum of activity, Stone was walking back to the desk with coffees for him and Finch when his cell phone rang. Everyone looked up, nerves were starting to fray, the good news about the first missing girl being found alive had buoyed moral and what they didn’t need now was any bad news. They were all trying not to look but each time Stone’s phone rang it would either be Laura, they thought,  calling to say she was okay, or...bad news.

It was Eleanor, Stones wife calling.

‘Hi Elea...’ he didn’t get a chance even to finish saying her name.

‘Have you seen the TV reports? Have you? They’re saying they’re all going to be killed; they’re calling him the ‘Rainbow Killer’. I can’t take much more Brad, where is she? I’m going crazy.’

Finch and Tariq, who were sitting nearby, could hear the terror stricken panic in Eleanor’s voice. Most of the time they could do their job, tracking down criminals, arresting murderers and stay pretty distant from the effects on the victims and the people involved, but when it was someone they knew, and they could see the consequences first hand, it was hard to watch.

‘No, I haven’t seen it, I’ve heard about it but, Eleanor, we’ll find her, I promise you. The first girl’s just been found alive, did you hear?’

She didn’t answer immediately, she was crying too much to speak. ‘Yes, I did, I saw it on CNN, I just hope that...anyway, what are you doing about finding our little girl Brad?’ The question tugged at his heart, maybe he wasn’t doing enough, he thought.

‘Look, we have a few leads honey; we’re getting close, stay by the phone okay? I’d bring you up here but...’ Finch was shaking his head. ‘...we’re in and out of the office. Can’t Helen, your sister come and stop with you?’ Stone didn’t know what else to say, he’d never been in this situation before and realized how hard it must be for Eleanor at home on her own just waiting by the phone.

‘She’s on her way, should be here in an hour or so.’

‘Okay that’s great, I’ll call you soon okay?’

Eleanor rang off, still sobbing uncontrollably.

There were no solid leads; and they were no closer than they were three hours ago.

Stone snapped.

‘Guys don’t we have anything? No suspects at all? There must be someone who’s good for this?’

People shuffled in their chairs, Finch desperately wanted to say there was, ‘Perhaps when Ramirez gets through checking the scene where Tamika was found he’ll have something, maybe he’ll be able to talk to her at the hospital.’ Finch knew he was clutching at straws.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Tariq. He’d been feverishly scouring databases and recent incidents and crimes and he came across the release of an ex-con who was out on the streets again. The M.O. was hauntingly similar to the way the girl’s had disappeared one by one. ‘‘Bad’ Billy Thompson,’ he said.

Finch almost spilt his coffee, ‘What about him Tariq?’

Stone wanted to know also, ‘Who the hell’s that?’

‘‘Bad’ Billy Thompson, put down for twenty to life for the abduction and murder of four young girls in 1995, been out on parole for two weeks. Served fifteen years, been a good boy inside and must have persuaded the board that he was a reformed man.’

‘Before my time, maybe Gruffnick knows about him?’

‘Gruffnick?’ Stone wondered.

‘You haven’t seen him on a bad day yet Stone.’

Stone nodded and said ‘Oh,’ realizing who Finch was referring to.

‘What do we have on him?’ asked Finch.

Tariq scrolled down the page on his computer and read off Billy Thompson’s last known address. The same details were also scrolling on his iPad which he had synced in.

‘What are we waiting for Finch?’ said Stone, anxious to check the guy out.

‘Tell me a bit more about his M.O.’ Finch said to Tariq.

‘Okay. He abducted four girls between March and June 1995. They were all between twelve and fifteen years old. He stalked a local school and picked them off one by one as they were on their way home.’

‘What did he do to them Tariq?’ asked Stone.

‘I err don't think you want...’

‘Tell me.’

Tariq shot a glance over to Finch, he was reluctant to disclose the information to a non police officer.

‘Tell him Tariq, you’ve gone too far now.’

‘They were all raped and...strangled. They found all the girls boarded up in a room in the back of his apartment, apart from one, she was found wandering around the street, they think she must have escaped somehow. She was the only one to survive. He’s a violent pedophile, if it’s him, we need to close him down.’

Stone stood up and went across to the window. The room went deathly quiet. He turned back with a determined look on his face.

‘As I said, what are we waiting for?’

‘Bring your iPad Tariq, you got the address right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Let’s go.’

The only useful bit of information that Officer Christine O’Hara could report to Ramirez when he reached the park where Tamika Achebe had been found was two separate eye witness accounts that say they saw a big black SUV driving away at speed, a little while before the lady dog walker called 911.

CSI worked the area and found nothing that could help Ramirez in his investigation. There was a ten-foot long tire mark on the road which may or may not have been made by the SUV as it sped away, but Jones and Phelps told Ramirez that all it would give them was a possible make and model, and not the vehicle itself. Ramirez ordered the crime scene to be abandoned and asked Officer O’Hara to accompany him to the hospital where Tamika had been taken for assessment.

This was the most difficult time in an investigation, Ramirez thought to himself, waiting for that first break, the first tangible lead that would take them to the next level, it may not hand the perpetrator to them on a plate, but put them just one step behind them. It had to come soon, at least there had been no further girls go missing since Laura Stone.

That was some blessing.

O’Hara was waiting for Ramirez at the main doors of the hospital, she was sheltering under the canopy from the icy wind which was a reminder that winter was a long way from over. Ramirez felt like a cigarette, it used to help him think straight, he’d solved many a case whilst taking a smoking break at the back of the precinct. If he thought it would solve this case he’d start the filthy habit up again, he thought.

‘Lead the way Officer,’ he said to O’Hara.

O’Hara stepped into the lobby, showed the administrator behind the reception counter her badge, and asked where they could find a recent admission, a young girl called Tamika Achebe. She was told that she would have been taken to level ten, where a specialist team of female physicians, who tend to suspected sexual assaults, were situated. The middle aged lady had a kind face and a calm manner; she looked up from the admissions register and confirmed to O’Hara that that was the case, ‘Look out for Dr. Harper’s office,’ she said.

They took the elevator up to the tenth floor and a chart on the wall directed them to turn left to the specialist unit. O’Hara led the way to a door marked ‘PRIVATE – Dr. HARPER – PRESS BELL FOR ATTENTION’

O’Hara pressed the button on the side wall and stood back. Thirty seconds later a bouncy young nursing assistant opened the door and on seeing a uniformed Officer and what must obviously to her have looked like a Detective, asked them to follow her inside.

Ramirez entered first being the senior officer and asked the assistant where he could find Tamika Achebe, and that they’d like to talk to the Doctor in charge. As Ramirez was finishing the sentence a good looking woman in her mid-thirties wearing a white coat and a stethoscope nestling around her neck, announced herself as Dr. Harper.

‘You’d better come into my office,’ she said to Ramirez.

Ramirez and O’Hara followed the Doctor into her room, which had an examination bed along one wall and a desk with a computer monitor, a blood pressure machine and various papers and medical books, on the other. Her tenth floor office window looked out over the
Manhattan skyline and Ramirez remarked how jealous he was of her view. Dr. Harper invited them both to sit down.

Ramirez introduced himself and Officer O’Hara and got straight down to business. He crossed his legs and took out his notebook, but otherwise didn’t take his eyes off of the attractive Doctor.

‘Thanks for seeing us Dr. Harper, I’m in charge of the investigation of the five missing school girls, well four now obviously, and apart from our crude observations that she had been drugged, is there anything else you can tell us to assist us with our enquiries?’

‘She’s alive, but physically she’s in a pretty bad way. Nothing life threatening, and her body will heal, but she’s been very seriously abused Detective, and I’m afraid mentally, she’ll be scarred for life.’

Ramirez was wondering how many similar cases O’Hara had worked on, the details might be a bit harrowing for her, he thought, but good experience.

‘You okay O’Hara?’

The female officer shuffled in her chair feeling embarrassment and awkwardness in equal measure, ‘I’m fine Sir.’

‘How d’ya mean Doctor?’ asked Ramirez.

‘She was raped, several times over, and sodomized. Stupid to say but thank God she was drugged, but the physical damage remains the same. Whichever animal did this to her...excuse me Detective, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such callous abuse of a young girl, he needs finding before he can exact the same vile abuse on someone else.’ Doctor Harper tried to compose herself before she continued. ‘She would have been a virgin before the attack and now, well, let’s just hope she can still have children sometime in the future, when the mental scars have healed.’

‘I see, we’ll get the bastard who did it, we’re doing all we can. DNA Doctor?’

‘Yes, we have the attacker’s DNA. But very little else I’m afraid. The strange this is, there are no other injuries apart from those inflicted sexually. Usually someone committing a sexually-violent act would harm the person in other ways. It looks like we’re dealing with a pedophile, through and through.’

‘Thank you Doctor. Is she conscious? I know it’s difficult but she may well be able to tell us something that would lead us to the man who did it.’

‘I’m sorry detective, it’s far too early, she hasn’t fully recovered from the effects of the barbiturates yet, give it another few hours and...’

‘It may be too late then Doctor, you’ll let me know the second we can talk to her? It wouldn't be me; I’d ask O’Hara here if she could...’

‘As I said, give it a couple of hours and I’ll call you, okay?’

Officer O’Hara had just realized why Ramirez had asked her to go along with him to the hospital.

‘As soon as you possibly can, it might save lives.’

Ramirez stood up to leave and shook hands and thanked the Doctor, on the way out he saw a young girl lying on a bed in a treatment room through a window. Her eyes were closed, she was still unconscious. She had tubes in her mouth and nose and her mother was sitting beside her holding her hand. Ramirez stared hard at the suffering inflicted by the beast who was out there somewhere. He then turned to the Doctor and said, ‘She’s alive. Thanks again Doctor.’

The bouncy assistant jumped up from her desk and showed them out of the special unit.

Ramirez and O’Hara headed for the elevator. Neither of them said a word for some time.