The Screaming Room (23 page)

Driscoll, Aligante, and Thomlinson were sitting inside the Lieutenant's cruiser, parked a hundred feet from the hotel. They had no reason to go anywhere. The electronic shadow was keeping track of Shewster's limo, which was moving, but hadn't gone very far. The GPS configuration on TARU's laptop featured a map, currently displayed as a grid of the local streets surrounding the hotel as well as the area where their subject was now circling.

“What the hell is he doing?” said Margaret. “This is his third trip through Central Park!”

“Maybe he's a nature fanatic,” Thomlinson said from the backseat.

“Then he'd be sitting in his hotel room watching
National Geographic
,” said Margaret.

“Don't encourage the man, Margaret. Cedric's prone to wit.”

“He's leaving the park.”

Driscoll started the car. There was no need to tailgate Shewster. The GPS was doing a good job of that. The Lieutenant would simply tag behind at a safe distance.

“Whaddya suppose he was doing circling the park?” Margaret asked.

“I'm bettin' he was talking to someone on his car phone.”

“Aren't we tapped into that?”

“No. TARU determined he was using a hard-wired line. They'd have to get inside the car to properly tap it. We're only on the hotel landline and his cell.”

“Any guess as to who he might have been talking with?”

“Don't know. But if we keep our eyes fixed on the laptop, he may lead us to him.”

“I'm glad he's on the move,” Margaret griped. “I was getting dizzy watching him circle.”

When Cassie opened her eyes, she found she was alone in the bed. It didn't surprise her. It was like Angus gave up sleeping. For the past week and a half, she had fallen asleep while her brother labored on the notebook. At first, the constant tapping was annoying. It was an effort to fall asleep. Last Tuesday, she had wrapped herself in bedding and headed down the stairs to stretch out in the old recliner. She had escaped the tapping sound, but the coils in the recliner stabbed her, and after a few minutes the noxious horse smell forced her back up the stairs to the loft.

“We're gettin' the hell outta here,” she had griped, only to have Angus tell her, “We'll start looking tomorrow. Can you hold out 'til tomorrow?” She said she could. But goddamn it! They were still in the freaking loft!

She eventually grew accustomed to the tapping. As a matter of fact, it had become soothing. Like those audio-tapes of babbling brooks or waves hitting the shoreline.

Cassie had also become accustomed to waking up to the sound. How the hell Angus could spend night after freaking night pounding away on the laptop was beyond her. And why? When she asked him, he'd wave the gun and shout

“Bang! Bang!” She thought he had lost it. What could be so interesting on the goddamn computer?

But when she awoke this morning, she thought they had finally moved. There was no tapping of keys. Angus wasn't sitting on his stool. And the place smelled like eggs and bacon.

“What the…?”

Swinging her legs over the side, she pressed her fists into the mattress and got up.

That's when she spotted him.

Angus was standing at the stove and flipping eggs.

“How come you're not typing, and what's with the cookin'? You never eat breakfast.”

Something isn't right. What the hell is going on? Is this a dream?

She covered her ears, certain the whistle would sound. It didn't.

“Angus? What gives?”

“Found her,” he mouthed.

“What? Speak up for Chrissake!”

“I found her!” he hollered.

That she heard. “Found who?”

He lowered the flame under the pan and headed for the laptop. Only he didn't just walk there. He crouched down and slithered toward the unit. When he got there, he bolted upright, pouncing, like the laptop was prey. Grinning, he pointed at the screen and said, “Her.”

Cassie hurried over. What she saw was the black-and-white image of a woman's face. “Who is she?” she asked, studying the image like it was a specimen in a cage. “She looks familiar. Do we know her?”

“Not yet.”

“Whaddya mean ‘not yet'? Why does she look so familiar?”

Angus depressed the laptop's down arrow, raising the photo. The woman's name appeared below it.

Cassie's eyes widened. “Wow! Way to go, Angus!”

Driscoll was heading down Ninth Avenue. The laptop Margaret was monitoring had placed the Shewster vehicle a safe distance ahead, traveling south. Ten minutes ago it had passed the cutoff for the Lincoln Tunnel and its driver had headed for West Street, where he made a left and continued south.

“A man on a mission,” Thomlinson remarked.

“What kind of mission?” asked Driscoll.

“He's passing Ground Zero. Still heading south.” Margaret raised her head and looked to Driscoll. “I hope you're up to date on your E-ZPass account. He just went under the overpass, which will take him into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.”

“Call Dispatch. Have them alert Highway Two.” The Lieutenant applied pressure to the gas pedal, glancing at the fuel level gauge.

“You want Highway to assist?”

“No. Just let them know we're tailing him through their borough. We don't want him stopped.”

The F train twisted hard to the left after exiting the underground station at Carroll Street, just east of Red Hook in Brooklyn. The screech of metal resonated throughout the subway car, as lights flickered within. Daylight then greeted the train as it climbed toward an encasement of steel girders supported by massive concrete columns that formed a bridge over the Gowanus Canal.

The woman was having an exceptionally good day. Now, if she could only discover how to string them into a week, a month, a year. She adjusted the leather strap of her shoulder bag, preparing to exit the train three stops ahead at Ninth Street in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. She had resided in the upscale neighborhood most of her life, occupying the third floor of a four-story brownstone on Sixth Street. Thanks to urban gentrification, the rent for the one-bedroom apartment had quadrupled over the years, but so had her income. A tradeoff. It allowed her to remain in the neighborhood, where she had amassed a trove of wonderful memories. If she closed her eyes, she could still experience the feeling, the very smell, of her first-grade classroom at Saint Saviour's Elementary. Just last week she marveled at the panorama of pure visual delight at Brooklyn's Botanical Garden. The Slope, as it had come to be called, featured a host of fine restaurants to accommodate everyone's palate, an expansive array of boutiques, and a number of cozy coffee shops along its main thoroughfare, Seventh Avenue.

After a brief interlude of sunshine, the train descended underground again, delivering her to the Slope at Ninth Street, where brilliant early evening sunshine greeted her. Her brownstone sat a mere three blocks away.

After her trek, which included a quick stop to purchase a small bouquet of fresh-cut irises, she turned the corner and headed south, hoping to be home in time to catch her favorite show on Food Network.

But because someone had other plans, she never got to see what went into the shepherd's pie.

Police chatter continued to emanate from the cruiser's radio as Driscoll and company continued tailing Shewster. After sailing through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, the limo continued east. When it buzzed past Kennedy Airport, Margaret looked up from the laptop. “In another five minutes, he'll be crossing into Nassau County. You want me to let the chief of detectives know we're heading out of the city?”

Their crime prevention effort wasn't exactly in sync with department regulations. “We'd better run silent,” said Driscoll.

“You got it.”

“How's a guy from California know his way around New York? We haven't hit one traffic tie-up or construction bottleneck yet!” said Thomlinson.

“The day is young, my friend.”

 

At the five-mile marker on the Southern State Parkway, Driscoll brought the Chevy to a complete stop behind a procession of red brake lights.

Margaret believed that if anyone, passenger or driver, raved about the good fortune of hitting no traffic, an immediate tie-up would materialize. “You had to make a remark about no traffic problems, didn't you?” She shot Thomlinson a glare.

Though tempted, Thomlinson figured now wouldn't be the best time to light a cigar, certain Margaret would have some superstition about that as well.

“Where's our friend?” Driscoll asked.

“About a half-mile up. He appears to be moving slowly. Let's hope that means we'll also be rolling soon.”

It didn't.

As Driscoll's cruiser crept along at a snail's pace, Margaret charted the course of the now free-rolling limo.

“How'd he get through?” asked Thomlinson, taking note of flickering red and yellow lights in the distance.

“He probably passed the crash site before the emergency vehicles arrived to restrict access to lanes.”

Twenty frustrating minutes later they, too, were rolling. What Driscoll had lost in distance, he hoped to make up for in speed. With siren blaring and emergency lights ablaze, he rocketed past cars clearing the middle lane.

“The limo stopped,” said Aligante.

“Where?”

“He exited the parkway a mile into Suffolk County near the intersection of Bosley Road and Anderson.”

“Anderson what?”

She tilted the laptop, seeking a better view. “It just says Anderson.”

“Get Suffolk PD on the line. Find out what's there.”

 

Fifteen minutes later, Driscoll, Aligante, and Thomlinson exited a garden supply center at 2276 Anderson Drive. None of them looked happy. After a brief conversation with the owner, it had been determined that a man matching Shewster's description had pulled up in a stretch limo, came into the center, and had purchased a cemetery blanket. The owner, Carl Phillips, had helped him with his selection, which was intended for the grave of his sister, Muriel, who, according to Shewster, had died three years ago while a resident at a nearby assisted-living center. All indications were that Shewster was headed for Saint Thomas's Cemetery, four miles east. The laptop had him coming to a stop at Withers Road and Degraw Place in Sayville.

“That'd be the cemetery,” Phillips told them.

That prompted Margaret to use the laptop to access the Web site Interment.net, where the burial of one Muriel R. Shewster was recorded. It indicated she had been interred precisely three years ago today. Driscoll asked Thomlinson to call Saint Thomas's. When he did, the gentlemen who answered said, “That's odd. You're the second person inside of twenty minutes to ask about Muriel Shewster.” It came as no surprise when Thomlinson was informed that the other inquirer said he was the deceased's brother, Malcolm, and was seeking directions to her grave. His description matched that of Shewster's.

The three climbed back into Driscoll's Chevy.

Quiet prevailed during their trip back to the city.

Driscoll was annoyed.
Jesus Christ! What was I thinking? Three officers? I used three officers chasing the goddamn pied piper? Next time, if there is a next time, one of us will trail the limo. How hard could it be to monitor a laptop while driving a car, for Chrissake? And this Malcolm Shewster. The man was full of surprises. He had a heart.
Or so it seemed.

A knock sounded, dispelling the Lieutenant's self-deprecation. Looking up, he found Thomlinson shadowing the door to his office, sporting a huge smile.

“Cedric, you hit it big at Keno?”

“Better. You're gonna love this,” he said, stepping inside. “Department of Corrections called. One Mr. Oliver Novak, a resident of Cell Block B in Sing Sing, says he recognizes the faces in the photo.”

“Faces? Our photo shows only Angus.”

“Ready?”

“Okay. Out with it before your face shatters from that grin.”

“He recognized Angus and Cassie from their photo as kids on the reservation. Claims to have met them. Now…are you really ready?”

Driscoll looked like he was getting annoyed again. Cedric sensed it, so he ended the suspense with a whisper, “Says he knows the father.”

Driscoll, northbound on the Henry Hudson Parkway, was heading for the Ossining Correctional Facility in Westchester County. Considering the traffic flow, he'd likely be there in forty-five minutes. The fifty-five-acre fortress known as Sing Sing, a name derived from the Indian words
Sint Sinks
, meaning “stone upon stone,” sat on a rocky hillside overlooking the Hudson River. Oddly enough, it was part of a residential town where neighboring homes sold for upward of $500,000. So close, yet so far, he thought—probably in sync with the thoughts of the nearly two thousand inmates.

Oliver Novak was doing a stretch of twenty years to life for attempted murder. Driscoll was certain the three-time convicted felon would be looking for something in return for the information he claimed to have on the twins' father. There wasn't much he could offer though to a three-time loser, outside of a softer pillow.

It was nearing two o'clock when he pulled the Chevy into the prison's administration building's parking lot, where he flashed his shield to the gatekeeper before heading for the six-story tan brick structure. Was it his imagination or was he actually hearing the wails of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who had been convicted of espionage and executed on the site? Or the faint voices of President Abraham Lincoln, Mayor Jimmy Walker, or the actor James Cagney? They, too, had visited the maximum-security prison. Amusement ebbing, he put his flight of fancy aside and checked his phone to see if his sister or anyone else had tried to reach him. He was a distance up. There may have been trouble getting to him live. With his world in order, he got on with the reason he had come.

Novak was not as Driscoll had imagined. His freckled face and crooked smile suggested he be cast in a remake of the
Hardy Boys
. Had this man, cloaked now in prison green, met the right talent scout, he may have turned his back on savage butchery. His attempted-murder rap stemmed from an assault with a machete. The sliced and diced woman survived, saving him from lethal injection.

“Driscoll?” Novak wanted to know, taking a seat across from the Lieutenant at a metal table.

“You eyeball a couple of kids from a dated Polaroid in a downstate newspaper but miss my mug on page two?”

“You look better in the paper.”

Do I, now? “I'm told you knew the twins.”

“Their old man, too. I figure that's gotta be good for something, no?”

Why alert the police?
Driscoll wondered.
He could have called Shewster and laid claim to $3 million. That'd be a whole lot of something.
“I don't know how current your newsstand is, but we already know who the twins are.”

“Yeah? Then why ya here?”

“You tell me. You're the one who called.”

“If the police department has ID'd the twins, why is their lead investigator here and not sitting before a judge and a jury with the twins lawyered up like O.J. Simpson?”

“News flash, Novak. Johnnie Cochran's dead. It'd still take a lot of money to hire the remaining Dream Team. And where would a pair of sixteen-year-olds get that kind of money?” The expression on Novak's face said he was aware he had slipped somehow. But it was too late to take back his remark. “Look, Novak, you placed the call. That tells me you've got something to say. So say it.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“You must have me confused with the genie inside Aladdin's lamp. The police department's not a financial-aid office.”

“I'm not after money. If I thought the king's ransom they're advertising in the paper could get me outta here, I wouldn't have called you. Besides, I'm sure who ever is fronting the money would figure out a way of not having to pay a three-time convicted felon.” He smiled. “There are other forms of compensation.”

“Inmates can still be charged with extortion, my friend. And here's another news flash. If you don't start talking, I can make life a little more challenging.”

“This is a freakin' prison. They got bars on the windows. How more challenging can it get?”

“Oh, I dunno…. How about a stretch in Special Housing? Or maybe a new roommate. One who doesn't waste time soaping up after he tells you to bend over.”

“Yep. Much better in newsprint. It hides your ugly side.” After a bit of reflection, Novak opened up. Driscoll figured it was the prospect of no soap. “Their old man's name is Sanderson. Talk about an ugly side. This guy's a real prick.”

He's speaking in the present tense. Could Sanderson be alive? “Yeah, like coming after a thirty-three-year-old woman with a machete makes you an Eagle Scout.”

“That dyke had it coming. She led me around by the dick for three years while she was screwing my sister-in-law.”

Driscoll was surprised. They usually swore they were framed. “Nice group of company you ran with. This Sanderson guy have a first name?”

“Gus. Gus Sanderson. A prince.”

“Sounds like he fit right in with your stable buddies.”

“You know the guy?”

“No. Should I?”

“But you said stable.”

“Yeah?”
As in where people like you should sleep at night.

“C'mon. You're shittin' me. Stable. Like in horses. Right?” The look on Novak's face was one of disbelief.

“So?”

“Sanderson was a hansom cab driver. Made a livin' carting tourists back and forth in Central Park between the Plaza Hotel and the Tavern on the Green. When he wasn't loaded and beatin' up on his kids, that is. He did some carving job on the girl's face, huh? Musta been tired of seeing double.”

Driscoll lunged across the table and grabbed Novak by the throat. “Your sense of humor just pissed me off!”

The prisoner's face flooded with color. He gasped for air, leaning precariously backward in his chair until Driscoll released his hold.

“What's the big deal?” Novak managed, choking on his words. “You figure they're killing people. Aren't you? You forgettin' who the bad guys are?”

Was he?
Or had the vision of a girl's face being butchered forced a memory of his daughter's mangled body entangled in the twisted metal of the family van?

“Lighten up, Lieutenant. You nearly killed me, for Chrissake! Lighten up already.”

“Talk.”

“I'm afraid to now.”

“Tell me about Sanderson.”

“As long as you stay focused, I will. Jeeesus! I thought it was lights-out back there.”

“Start talking about Sanderson.”

“Like I said. He ran a horse-drawn carriage in the park.”

“How is it you knew him?”

Novak looked over both shoulders and leaned in to within inches of Driscoll's face. “This stays here, right?”

“Depends on what ‘this' is.”

“Look. I'm a three-time loser. I'm never gettin' out. But if Sanderson finds out it was me that turned on him, it's goodnight Elizabeth. I may be behind bars, but that don't mean I'm protected from the likes of him.”

“Talk.”

“Does that mean we have a deal?”

“DAs cut deals.”

“C'mon, Lieutenant. You know what I'm askin' for.”

“Talk.”

Novak looked defeated. He took a deep breath and held it. But when he finally exhaled, his words flowed like water. “Sanderson wasn't just cartin' tourists around the park. Once a week, one of those tourists dropped off a package. The package contained a half-pound to a pound of methamphetamine—working man's cocaine. It came from a variety of sources. Some cooked right here in the USA. Some from other countries. At the end of the day, Sanderson would head to his stable, on East Sixtieth Street, under the FDR Drive. After tending to his horse—Teener was her name.” Novak grinned at the notion. And Driscoll knew why. “Teener” was street slang for meth. “After settling Teener in for the night, Sanderson would climb the stairs to a loft he had built over the stable. There, he would cut the meth with either baking soda or vitamin B
₁₂
. One time he used lye. Said he had a score to settle. Remember, we're talkin' one mean son of a bitch. Back to the story. After depositing a sixteenth of an ounce of the stuff, Teener. The horse. A sixteenth, get it? Anyway, after depositing the speed into mini-press-n-seals, he'd call me.”

“Why you?”

“I was his distributor.”

Driscoll leaned back in his chair and reflected on what he had just been told. He had his suspicions, but he still wasn't sure why Novak was turning on Sanderson. “The guy into anything else?”

“There was a rumor he had a Web site. For what, I haven't a clue. But it musta been another way of making money. It'd be an even bet he's still using it. That guy could squeeze mercury out of a dime.”

“And the twins? How'd they play into this?”

“Beats the hell outta me. All I can tell ya is they were attached to him like a Vise-Grip. The guy'd go to take a piss, and they'd hafta tag along.”

“So they knew about the loft?”

“Musta. Where he went, they went.” Novak scratched his head. He looked puzzled. “You're really liking them for the killings?”

“You know otherwise?”

“No. Nothing like that. It's just that when I knew them, they were nice kids. I don't think either of them was a fan of the leash, but from what I saw, they were both nice kids.”

“One more question, Novak. Why tell me all this?”

He grinned. “Sanderson was one cheap bastard. Had tons of money. All of it cash. Stashed it under the floorboards in his loft.”

So that's where they were getting the money for their killing spree. Sure, the Crenshaw girl said the bills smelled of horses! A perfect place to store it, too. Right in the middle of their killing field.

“I doubt if Uncle Sam ever saw one nickel of the money. But a lot of that cash was mine. He cut me off when the judge pounded the gavel. Why go and do that? He coulda easily got it to me in here. But he didn't. So, my compensation is seeing to it the guy gets busted.”

Revenge. Powerful motivator. “You said the stable was on East Sixtieth under the FDR?”

“Looks like a two-car garage. Sits across from a small park on Marginal Street. Painted battleship gray, the last time I saw it. Had a rusted sign hangin' overhead. ‘No Vacancies.'”

The man grew silent.

“That it?”

“I doubt you'll need more.”

The prisoner whistled, as he watched Driscoll stand, summon a guard, and head for the door.

 

As soon as Driscoll stepped outside the building, he called Margaret. “The con thinks their father's still alive. Says his name is Gus Sanderson and that he operated a hansom cab inside Central Park across from the Plaza. Give the media a heads-up on the name and put a call in to the sheriff's office in Carbondale. See if they have anything on a Gus Sanderson, then send someone up to the park.”

“On it.”

“I'm betting the father's dead and that the twins are holed up inside a stable on East Sixtieth under the FDR. It'll resemble a two-car garage. Some sort of loft up top. Painted gray. Call it in to Manhattan North. They're to have the Nineteenth Precinct cordon off the area. No one moves in or out. The FDR skirts the river. Have the Harbor Unit send up two boats. And get a hold of Aviation. I want two choppers circling. They spot any pair in the vicinity, they're to point them out so someone can intercept. Anybody comes within five hundred feet of that stable is to be intercepted as well. Let's hope they're home this time. I'll be heading back with full lights and siren. Forty-five minutes. An hour, tops. If there's no movement, I wanna be there when we go in.”

“You got it.”

“Where's Cedric?”

“Sitting on Shewster.”

“Good. Fill him in on what's going down.”

“Will do.”

Driscoll hesitated, not sure how she'd react to his next order. But he gave it. “I want a SWAT team onsite. Shooters in position.” He was sure he heard her take a breath. He held his, waited two seconds, then heard her say, “Done.”

Thoughts collided inside the Lieutenant's head as he raced south on the Henry Hudson Parkway. Although Novak raised the possibility that Sanderson might still be alive, it'd be unlikely the twins would seek refuge in their father's building if he were still in the picture, and every instinct told Driscoll that's where they were. But were they alone? These two were psychos. Angus said the old man was dead but he didn't say buried. Driscoll hoped they hadn't pulled a Norman Bates or a Jeffrey Dahmer. Then there was Novak, who had confessed to pushing drugs. That couldn't go unreported.
Put an end to the killings first,
wisdom suggested.
The inmate's not going anywhere.