Bobby POV
The burnt out remains of Ace Bentley's apartment proved mostly useless.
"This was a wasted trip," Alex muttered.
"No footprints," I remarked. "So unless he was stashing the pry axe somewhere else, it should be here, right?"
She nodded thoughtfully and led the way down the blackened hall.
Bentley's body had been removed yesterday by the coroner's office and was currently awaiting an autopsy.
Although I'd seen him.
The COD was pretty obvious considering the concise hole in the middle of his charred forehead.
Sean had been cleared quickly due to the obvious extenuating circumstances.
I wasn't sure if it was because it was so cut and dried, or if it was because Bernard knew the IAB officer assigned to the matter, and had subtly pulled him aside.
Whichever the case, it had all been over before it really began.
"Matches," Alex remarked as she looked through a mostly-intact drawer in the kitchen. "Lots of them. Handy for a pyromaniac, don't you think?"
"It's kind of odd that he mentioned that to Sean. He commented on that being in his profile."
"Maybe he couldn't decide between being a cop or a fireman."
"Uh huh," I agreed. "Which might have made it that much more devastating to be denied. He finally chose and then he failed. I wonder if they've found anything in the records yet."
"You really think he flunked out?"
"That would be my guess. Sabin flunked him, so he killed him."
"And then he took out his anger on other firefighters?"
"Maybe when he saw they were addicts, it sent him into a rage. Because they'd gotten what he couldn't have and yet they were unappreciative."
"Pills," she called out, still searching through the kitchen. "Oh, and hey, check this out."
She tossed me the bottle of pills and I turned it around so that I could read the label.
"Cardizem. Prescribed to Joshua Sabin. So Tomlin stole drugs from him."
"Why would anyone want to take heart medication for the hell of it?" she mused.
"I don't know," I said. "Side effects are dizziness, nausea, lightheadedness…"
"Sounds like a blast."
"Maybe he stole them so that Sabin wouldn't have them," I posed. "Maybe he wanted him off his game."
"Maybe," she agreed.
We spent the next hour bagging and tagging everything in sight, but we never ran across the pry axe.
"But there's no sign of him having come back," I said.
"Which means that it wasn't here to begin with."
"So he has someplace to keep it where he feels safe. Not a place to sleep, but a place to store his possessions."
"And maybe that's where he kills his victims."
We finished up at the apartment and headed back to 1PP.
Johnny had called Alex earlier to tell her about the list that Kevin had comprised.
Thirteen names.
"And these are just the ones he knows," she'd said in disbelief after hanging up the phone. "How many do you think there actually are?"
It was a good question to which we had no way of knowing the answer.
The best that we could do was to give the men a heads-up.
Alex placed a call to the fire chief and explained the situation.
Sort of.
She told him that it had been determined that the men were potential victims of a serial killer and extra precautions should be taken to ensure their safety.
She didn't elaborate on the trait that had triggered their appearance on the list.
We were still going to have to put our heads together to determine how best to handle that situation, but for now, this was the quick fix.
We got out of the SUV in the parking garage and headed for the elevator where we found Lupo and Bernard. Ben was still with them, too.
"I thought you would've been back awhile ago," I commented.
"False alarm on the APB," Lupo explained. "We were on our way back when we took a call from a uniform who reported seeing it."
"And it wasn't our car?"
"It wasn't even close," Bernard said in irritation. "I think that cop was just an publicity junkie. He wanted to be involved in a big case."
Lupo nodded his agreement.
"Uh huh. It took us an extra two hours because we were almost here and then had to go over to Brooklyn."
"What did you guys find at Bentley's?" Bernard asked.
"Some pills. And some matches, but no pry axe."
"Could you tell if he'd been back?" Ben asked, and I couldn't help but smirk at his cop-like line of thought.
"It didn't look like it," I told him. "And I think we would've been able to tell. We left shoe prints all over the place."
"So he has a hiding place," Lupo mused.
"That's what we're thinking."
"Sean and Hayes are here with the records?" Bernard questioned as we finally got onto the elevator.
"Yeah, and Kevin made us a list of potential targets."
"Good. The walls are closing in on this guy," Lupo remarked.
We found everyone in a conference room on the eleventh floor. And by everyone, I mean Johnny, Sean, Hayes, and Kendra.
"Where's Kevin?" I asked.
"He went to downstairs to get some coffee," Johnny said as he got up from the table. "And now that you guys are back, I'd better go. Someone needs to run that business of yours because it's not going to run itself."
"You're leaving?" Alex asked in surprise.
"I'm not a consultant on this case," he reminded us. "And it looks like you have plenty of manpower. I don't want to let things go any longer at the office. But keep me posted, okay?"
"I'll walk you out and then go find Kevin," Kendra said.
"Alright, what've you got?" I asked Sean after Johnny and Kendra left.
"Nothing so far," he replied.
"What's your system?" Bernard asked as he pulled up a chair next to Hayes.
"Passes on the right, failures on the left," Hayes said. "When we finish, we'll go back through all of the ones who failed and run checks on them to see where they are now. So far, the name isn't matching up to any of them, but who knows if that's his real name?"
"Good," I said with a nod. "We're going to talk to Kevin again. I'm sure he's tired of reliving his story, but maybe if he tells it again, something else will shake loose in his mind."
The door opened, and I expected to see Kevin, but instead, it was Connie.
"Hey, Lupo," she said quietly. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Did you walk over here?" Hayes asked her sharply. Her tone of voice caused all of us to turn to look at her, but she kept her gaze on Connie.
"Yes," she answered calmly, staring hard back at Hayes.
I shifted my gaze to Alex.
What's going on here? I asked silently.
I have no idea, her look said.
"Connie…"
"It's not that cold out," Connie stated firmly. "But I appreciate your concern. Lupo?"
"Uh…yeah," he said as he got up from the table. He was just as confused by the undercurrent in the room, I could tell.
As soon as Lupo closed the door behind him, Sean turned to his partner.
"What the hell was that about?"
"What?"
"That."
"Nothing. She just…said earlier that she…wasn't feeling well, and then she walked over here when it's freezing outside."
"She's not sick," Ben argued. "Or at least, not that I've noticed. And I've been living with her all week."
"I don't know," Hayes said with a shrug, and then picked up another file. "I'm just repeating what she said."
"Huh," Alex mused, still looking at me.
Something more was definitely going on here, but now wasn't the time.
"Where did Kevin go for coffee? Seattle?" Alex asked in annoyance after we'd been waiting for several more minutes.
"Come on," I told her. "We'll go to him. I could use some coffee myself."
We stepped out into the hall and ran into Lupo and Connie.
Apparently, they hadn't gone far.
"I'm not saying that I believe it. I'm telling you what she said," Connie was saying. "I need to get a statement from you, and one from Bernard, too."
"Fine. And while you're at it, get one from Ben."
They paused as we approached, with Lupo staring angrily at Connie, who shifted her gaze to the floor.
"Sorry," I mumbled as we went past them. "We're just…going down to find Kevin."
"Oh, you just missed him," Connie said.
"What?" Alex asked sharply.
"You just missed him," Connie repeated. "He was on his way out as I came in."
"Shit," Alex muttered, and she pulled out her cell phone as the two of us hurried to the elevator. "What is he doing now?"
"I can guess," I replied.
The elevator opened up and Kendra stepped off.
"Where did he go?" Alex asked her.
"Who?"
"Kevin," I said in frustration. "You went down to get him."
"Yeah, and he wasn't there. I figured that he must've taken the stairs or something, and I'd just missed him. So…oh my God…he's not here?"
"Connie said he left the building," Alex told her as she dialed her phone. She listened for a moment and then shook her head. "It's going straight to voice mail."
"Do you know where he might've gone?" I asked Kendra.
"I have no idea."
"He didn't talk about Tomlin?"
"No."
"Come on, Kendra," Alex said. "Don't hold out on us. This is dangerous. We need to find him."
"Honestly, Alex. I don't know."
"What was the last thing you two were discussing before he left the conference room?" I asked.
"He was talking about Dominick. I think he wanted me to understand…you know, everything. And then he said he wanted to get some coffee."
"Go back to the conference room and stay there," I ordered.
"What do I tell the others?"
"Nothing," Alex said. "We need them to keep searching those records. We'll find him."
Kendra walked away and Alex stabbed at the elevator button with her finger.
"I can't believe he'd just go out there on his own like that. Damn it, Bobby. Tomlin wants him dead, and Kevin's just going to go after him unarmed?"
"He remembered something," I suggested. "He was talking about Dom and he remembered something important, something that makes him think he knows where Tomlin is hiding."
"Then why didn't he just tell us? We could've gone there and picked him up."
"Because he wants to handle it himself."
"Yeah, look how well that's worked for him up until now," she replied hotly.
I stayed quiet.
I knew that she was more scared than mad, so I tried to offer up silent support rather than argue with her.
"This is bad, Bobby. It's not going to end well. If he finds him, he'll kill him. Or get himself killed. Which means he'll either be dead or in prison."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," I said calmly. "Maybe he was just going stir crazy in 1PP. Maybe he needed to get out on the street and look himself. He doesn't necessarily know where to look."
"You don't really believe that."
"No," I admitted on a sigh.
No, I didn't believe it. I was afraid of the exact same thing that she was.
"Okay, so where to?" she asked me when we finally got to the car. She started the engine and then looked at me with concern.
"Hell's Kitchen. Those buildings…I think we must have missed something. I bet if we go through them again, we'll find that axe."
And I didn't say it out loud, but I didn't have to.
She surely knew what I was thinking.
We needed to find Tomlin and his axe before Kevin found them.
TBC...
