Precious Blood (29 page)

Jenner’s phone rang, an irritating high blurting.

“Now you do me. Just press two and hold it.”

He pressed the key; her phone played a little snippet of music.

“I like yours better.”

“We can change the ringtone.”

He pulled the juice out of the fridge and poured them each a glass. He put one down in front of her and waited. She was studying her phone intently.

“Ana?”

“What?”

“What do you want to do?”

278

j o n at h a n h ay e s

She was still looking at the phone. Just when he thought she wasn’t going to answer, she said, “To kick. To kick it.”

“Will that be hard?”

“Maybe.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

She shrugged. “Long enough that when I’m not high, I really
want
to be high.”

“Since Thursday?”

“This time.”

He looked at her.

“And before?”

“On and off. Once in a while.”

He sat next to her.

“Snorting?”

“Uh-huh.”

She was concentrating on the phone now.

“Injecting?”

She turned quickly to him and said, “Oh, my God, Jenner!

Of course not!”

“So how are you going to stop?”

“I’ll just stop.”

“And that’s it?”

She smiled at him sadly. “No. You’ll help me.”

He put an arm around her. “When did you last get high?”

“About nine a.m. I used up the last—you didn’t find everything, by the way. But it’s finished now.”

“Is there anything I should get?”

“I don’t know. A
TV Guide
and some ice cream?”

“Cherry Garcia?”

“Sounds good.”

He put on his coat, and she grabbed his arm and looked him in the eye. “Thanks, Jenner. You’re a good guy.”

The phone rang. Garcia.

“Jenner, the chief is holding a press conference in about twenty. I think he’s going to release information about the Green case, and I thought you should be there.”

Precious Blood

279

He looked over at her. “In twenty minutes?”

“It’s at One Police Plaza. Five minutes by cab from your place, Jenner. If that.”

“Okay.”

He told her and said he didn’t know what to do, and she said go, and he told her he’d be back with the ice cream in about an hour.

Roggetti, Mullins, and Garcia were onstage, flanking the Chief of D’s, standing back by the flags. Jenner was surprised at how small the room was, too small to deal with the crowd of reporters. The room buzzed with at least a dozen languages, and Jenner saw cameras with battered stickers from Japan’s NHK, the BBC, and RAI from Italy, among others.

Scales put his papers on the lectern and scanned the crowd, nodding at Jenner. He tapped on the microphone, then began to speak.

“I have a brief prepared statement, after which I’ll refer all questions to the public affairs officer.”

He cleared his throat, then continued. “I’d like to announce that this morning a grand jury indicted Dr. David Green for seventeen counts of oral sodomy, twelve counts of sodomy, and two counts of sexual battery on a minor. At a hearing immediately afterward, he was denied bail on grounds that he is a proven flight risk. He has been remanded into custody until his trial.”

He paused. The reporters listened, pens poised above steno pads, microcassette and minidisc recorder microphones pointed at the chief.

Scales breathed in, then said, “Dr. Green is no longer considered a person of interest in the Hutchins student homicides.”

Etiquette immediately collapsed, the reporters rising to their feet, shouting questions and waving microphones.

280

j o n at h a n h ay e s

The chief nodded grimly. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming.”

He started off the platform when Richie Parsons, in the front row, shouted, “Are you telling the people of the City of New York that you have no idea who the Inquisitor is?”

The chief stopped, weighing his options.

He turned, walked back to the lectern, and began to speak, the AV tech turning the microphone back on midway through his first sentence.

“. . . all must be considered. Dr. Green was only a person of interest in the Inquisitor killings, never a suspect. This confusion rose up out of rumors tossed around by the media, something out of NYPD control.

“Rest assured: we have strong leads, and all of these leads will be explored to the fullest extent possible. We are confident that we will have the perpetrator in custody soon.”

He switched off the mic at the lectern, then added an un-amplified “Thank you” before leaving the conference room, followed by Garcia and then Roggetti and Mullins, the three detectives looking very somber.

Jenner caught up with them outside on the plaza, and together they walked over to Duane Street for coffee at the Courthouse Diner.

Jenner asked, “What happened to your new witness?”

Pat Mullins said, “The lawyer? Turned out she was a psycho. Hasn’t worked in a couple of years—went schizo.

Her current residence is an assisted living facility a couple of blocks north of the park, but she’s circling the drain, and smart money says she’ll be locked up or on the street in the next year or so. She tried to bite Ruben during the photo lineup.”

Jenner asked, “So, what’s next? What do we have? Rad?”

Rad shook his head. “There’s not much forensics. No, wait, it’s actually the opposite—we have
all
the forensics in
Precious Blood

281

the world. We got fingerprints and bite marks, we got blood.

But none of it’s in any database. His blood doesn’t ring any bells at CODIS, and we’ve got no suspects for a DNA comparison. Everyone at the clinic comes up clean—we’re pretty much at square one again.”

Jenner leaned back. “Okay. We know the link—Green’s clinic. Is it the clinic, is it the clinic database, is it prescriptions he wrote . . . ?”

Rad stopped stirring his coffee. “We figure someone outside has access to the database. Mason said a real hacker would have had no difficulty at all getting past the firewall on that database program.”

Jenner said, “It’s got to be someone outside the clinic—

they could access and change files like the appointment calendar, which was electronic, but couldn’t get rid of the hard-copy stuff printed out in the office.”

They all nodded, and Mullins said, “But where do we start? Is it because they’re egg donors? Because they’re Hutchins students? Why those four?”

Roggetti added, “And who’s next?”

They were all silent for a while.

Jenner’s cell phone rang. It was embarrassingly loud.

He opened it.

“Hello?”

There was no answer.

“Hello?”

He looked at the phone, then shrugged. “I don’t know how to use this thing. Ana gave it to me. She’s sending me a text message—this is her cell number here, but she’s added 911

at the end.”

Rad looked at it.

“That means ‘emergency.’ We’ll run you up.” Rad grabbed his coat. “Yo, Mullins—Dr. Jenner, Detective Roggetti, and myself are forever grateful for your generosity.”

They left Mullins signaling for the waitress.

In the car, Jenner dialed her number, but kept being told,
282

j o n at h a n h ay e s

“The customer you are calling cannot be reached at this time.”

He turned to Joey and said, “Faster.”

Joey hit the siren and they pulled ahead, racing up Centre.

Rad said, “What’s going on? Should I call for backup, Jenner?”

Jenner shook his head; she was probably starting to withdraw. “I don’t know. No, I don’t think so.”

They flew past Canal Street.

He leaned forward to talk to them. “Look, I should be straight with the two of you. This whole thing has taken a real toll on her. I found out last night she’s been doing heroin. We had a fight, and she ran away. She came back this morning, and she’s trying to get straight.”

“That’s rough.” Rad nodded. “Poor kid.”

Jenner tapped Joey’s shoulder and said, “Take the left onto Prince and right on Crosby—you can park in the lot round the back.”

Roggetti pulled in near the back loading dock, next to a graffiti-covered delivery van. Jenner had the door open before the car stopped, the detectives following him a second later.

“We’ll come up. You might need some help,” Rad said.

Jenner impatiently pushed the call button for the service elevator. The door was propped open with a garbage canister—

Pete was bringing down the trash.

“The stairs,” Roggetti said.

As Rad opened the stairwell door, there was a clang and a hum from the elevator behind them. The broad door opened, and Pete backed out onto the dock, pulling a cart stacked with garbage bags past them as Roggetti held an arm out to stop the door from closing.

Precious Blood

283

When Pete’s cart had cleared the door, Rad and Jenner got in, Roggetti following. As the door closed, Jenner noticed movement in the bags.

“Rad!” he shouted.

Rad turned to step out, and the man wearing Pete’s uniform leaned in and slashed hard and fast at his face; Rad fell backward, his hands waving at the blood pouring from his neck. Roggetti and Jenner tumbled out of the closing door; catching Jenner down on one knee, the man brought the back of his fist down hard onto the back of Jenner’s neck.

Jenner went down, vision blurring as Roggetti struggled to pull out his Glock. The gun was tucked out of sight on his hip, under his jacket, the backstrap still snapped shut; he didn’t have a chance. The man switched hands with a metal weapon—something with a long, thin silver blade, a knife or screwdriver—and swung it backhanded into Joey’s neck, burying it deeply.

Roggetti grabbed at his neck, choking. A blow to his abdomen dropped him; he lay writhing, his hand desperately slipping at the bloody handle in his neck.

The man squatted next to him, and with one swift move pulled the screwdriver out, tossed it into his right hand, and then, pinning one of Roggetti’s shoulders down with his knee, started methodically stabbing him in his neck and upper chest. Roggetti was bleeding heavily now, rocking slightly with the stabs.

The man half stood and used his foot to turn Roggetti, now gasping weakly, onto his front. He calmly pressed one foot on the back of Roggetti’s head to steady it, then drove the screwdriver into the base of his skull.

Jenner struggled to stand, his feet slipping from underneath him in the slick of Roggetti’s blood. The man saw him on all fours and kicked him heavily in his left chest. Jenner felt his ribs buckle.

“Stay down, Doctor,” the man said. “I’m pretty sure I just
284

j o n at h a n h ay e s

broke at least two of your ribs. If you move again, I will kill you. Stay down, I’ll let you live. Move, I’ll do you like I did him.”

Jenner lay there, curled up and fighting to breathe, unable to straighten from the pain in his chest, Joey’s blood smearing his face and hair.

The man turned to the cart and swept a couple of garbage bags off the stack. The next bag was open, and he tore it down to reveal Ana de Jong, her arms bound with clothes-line, her mouth mummy-wrapped with duct tape.

As soon as the daylight hit her, she struggled frantically, eyes bulging. He lifted her easily, as if he were tucking an attaché case under his arm, then put her down on the edge of the loading dock.

“Wait just a second,” he said. He slipped off the dock and started to walk toward the van.

“Oh, wait! Your friends . . .” He turned, stepped back to her, and gently rolled her over so that she lay facing Jenner and Roggetti. Her eyes widened, and she started to scream into her gag and twist against her bonds.

The man wiped his hands on his Carhartt jacket, then walked to the van and opened the back doors.

Jenner tried to move toward Ana, but he couldn’t catch his breath; he just lay there looking at her, shaking his head as he looked into her eyes. She was screaming, her face red from the effort, tears flowing down over the duct tape into her blood-soaked hair.

The man walked back to the dock. He nodded at Jenner and said, “I’ll be taking her now. Good-bye.”

He swung her down off the ledge and carried her, cradled in his arms, to the van. He had just put her in the van when the elevator door opened again.

Jun Saito, covered in blood, stepped out, glanced at Jenner and Roggetti, then shifted his attention to the sound of the van door slamming shut.

He immediately brought up his pistol and started firing
Precious Blood

285

from the dock, holding the gun with both hands as he walked toward the ledge, shooting. The first shot smashed into the left rear window; the second skimmed over the man’s shoulder.

The man sprinted to the front of the van and got in. He fishtailed out of the lot as Jun jumped down to follow, still firing.

It took all of Jenner’s strength to gasp out, “No! Ana’s in the truck!” and once he’d said it, he couldn’t get back the breath he’d lost.

Jun watched the van drive off, then closed his eyes. He turned to Jenner.

“License begins ALHR, New York State license. Remember that, Jenner.”

He scrambled up onto the ledge and looked into Jenner’s face keenly.

“You okay, Jenner?”

“Can’t breathe . . .”

“ALHR. I need you to remember that, okay?” He pressed Jenner’s shoulder. “Kimi’s dialed 911, they’re on their way.

I can hear them.”

Jenner could, too, a siren echoing from the firehouse a few blocks away on Lafayette.

“Wait here. I’m going to check on your friend.”

Jenner twisted his head to his right. Jun was standing there, looking down at Roggetti. The cop was no longer moving his limbs; soft tremors ran down his body every few seconds.

“Jenner. Can you hear me? Do I take out the screwdriver?

Will that help him?”

“No . . . leave it . . . ER . . .”

The elevator door opened again, and he saw Kimi kneeling next to Garcia, crying and shaking as she pressed a heavily bloodstained white towel to his neck, her arms and shirt glossy with the detective’s blood. His leg stuck out of the elevator, and the door kept opening and closing on it.