Monday, October 27th, 2011
2:20 PM, North Brother Island
After being on the island for an hour, it was easier to understand the concern expressed by Ulan and Eamon. There was no safe place to rest one's back. A twanging of instinct drew Beckett into a turn at the waist to regard the woods and tangled undergrowth behind her. No threat was apparent. While she was gazing, the hospital felt like it bore down its own chill scrutiny. A shiver rattled her shoulders while she jerked her chin back around.
The Teeth of Seven Sorrows glared through the black, unblinking gape of so many windows.
There may have been a time the building conveyed some manner of assurance for patients with its stoic, stalwart design. If so, that positive semblance was long gone. The intentional austerity combined with unwitting decades of neglect created something that no longer merely harbored or concealed madness. It embodied it. It felt like she was looking at something only half real. As though behind the facade there would be braces aiding in the stabilization of such a grand set piece. It didn't seem possible that any place could come to so strikingly mirror the suffering it had witnessed.
The Teeth denied its rightful place among every other building on the island by looking solid enough to endure another sixty years of abandonment. Discolorations, broken windows, and several lost or listing shutters didn't do much to detract from that. Grey stonework sprawling outward to either side was expertly set, solid-looking.
It evoked an uncomfortable level of awareness for her own impermanence which a sniper had already made abundantly clear and that, in turn, made it impossible not to infer a sense of latent hostility.
The front portal stood ajar the way ESU had left it. Despite accumulated rust, they had managed to get both doorways fully open. Voices of her fellows drifted out from a foyer that was only dimly apparent from the outside. They spoke stealthily in anxious tones. She could discern enough to know they were discussing the storm.
Harbinger was still a few hours from bringing its fury to bear in spectacular fashion; yet within its ever-encroaching shadow crept steadier streams of more insistent winds gusting around twenty-five miles per hour. Groaning timbers and rustling mantles of the trees were an unbroken chorus. The sight of them struck their observer less like a display of sympathetic fear than it did some frenzied, ritualized dance intended to provoke the weather to greater hostility. Larger drops of rain lashed down in slanted sheets. Strikes upon the foliage, stone, and the wooden shingles of the roof produced a cacophony worthy of accompanying such erraticism.
Spatters stung the detective's exposed face and cell-phone equipped right hand while she inwardly urged the switchboard of the NYPD to connect her to Espo faster.
She wasn't in a hurry to rejoin the others, but at least in there walls remained erect to surround her the way her inner defenses were proving less capable. Inside, that incessant sense of being observed by their unknown lurker on North Brother Island could be dismissed as the mildly neurotic phantom she knew damn well it was. Beckett had girded herself for combating the nefarious influence of hypervigilance over the past month in preparation for returning to work. Too many other elements were working in tandem with that symptom out here. Dickson's return from her troubled past coupled with his newfound armament in the knowledge of her being in therapy was not helping matters.
You only wish you were paranoid. He is out to get you, Katie.
"Detective?"
She twitched in surprise at the voice of the returning switchboard operator. "I'm here."
"Thank you for holding. I have Detective Esposito on the line. I'm patching you now."
"Thanks."
A moment later her colleague's familiar voice came through. It was difficult to hear over the background noise on both their lines. She turned her volume up to full and brought the phone back to her ear in time to catch the man saying, "—there, Beckett?"
"Hey. I'm here. What's up? Any news?"
A wordless grunt of annoyance provided grim foreshadowing. "Not much. We found Finch's place easy enough and got a picture of his boat, but there was no info on where it's, uh, berthed. Every marina we've called about it so far is up to their ears getting things ready for Harbinger. We're waiting on call-backs." He paused to exchange less audible words with someone on his end, and then continued. "As for the guy's apartment, we didn't see any signs of forced entry or rummaging. He was no neat-freak, so, we can't exactly rule that possibility out, but so far it's looking like a safe bet that whatever got him dead was exclusive to his visit to the island." That had already seemed to be the most likely scenario, but every point of confirmation was worthy information. "We'll keep the personal motives in mind anyway, but…" He didn't finish. It was easy to picture those burly shoulders shrugging.
"What about Rikers?"
"Si, we got in touch. The warden wasn't around, but Ryan spoke to one of the prison's supervisors. They didn't report anything out of the ordinary. The description of Finch's boat didn't net us squat—they log most passing vessels solely by their hull ID numbers, which is like a car's VIN, I guess, and our picture doesn't show that. There're a lot of files on a laptop we found in Finch's place. Too many, really. It's a mess. The eggheads have it now. Maybe they'll find us an image that has what we need."
"Send someone out there with pictures of Finch and the boat when you nail down that HID. Maybe those'll help jog some memories."
"Ah, no can do, Beckett. They're closing the bridge to the island. Most of the prison staff is actually being sent home, which is causing a lot of confusion. The guy Ryan spoke to said it was chaos out there. More than might be expected, I mean."
"Shit," she muttered to herself.
"Huh?"
"Nothing. Listen, get someone on the line while they're still around and get the addresses of the relevant workers' private residences if you have to. It's not exactly the season for cruising out there; someone had to've seen that boat and I damn well wanna know what it was doing when they did."
Esposito grunted again, in amusement that time. "We're already working on a list."
"Oh. Good."
A few seconds passed while her mind raced over the scant details gleaned and the courses stretching out ahead of them. Espo's voice intruded, "How is it out there? Sounds like hell."
"It's definitely getting worse." Movement within the mouth of the opened doorway caught and held her gaze. Shadowy figures flitted through somewhat less dense swaths of the same. Multiple cold beams of bluish LED light cut through the murk from their places fastened upon the vests of team members. Rick and the exploratory wave of ESU agents had returned. About damn time too.
"According to the news, the storm is sticking to the predicted track and speed. You sh— have —nough time." Kate unconsciously pressed the phone closer to her ear as if proximity might overcome signal disruption. "Mobile lin— sagging under the weight of the call traffic right now. Everyone's checking in with loved ones or whatever, so, call me here at the precinct if you need anything."
"Damn. You're already dropping in and out. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to."
"Repeat your last? You're cutt— and out on me."
Her lips pursed into a line of flat annoyance. "No shit, Sherlock."
"Well, I heard that clear as day," her fellow replied dryly. "Lucky me. If you can't get cell signal, hop onto the radio frequencies. They're still transmitting audio and video just fine. For now."
"Alright."
"We have a meeting in ten with a couple of the Forensics and CSU members who worked Finch's initial crime scene in Queens. I'll try you again afterward. Later."
"See ya." She hunched her upper half to create a windfall from the weather and wiped away some of the wetness on the cell before tucking it back into the water-resistant vest pocket.
The work ahead was almost enough of a distraction to muffle the unease which accompanied moving back into the hospital's foyer. It's gaping, toothless maw led into a throat of immediate size and breadth. A blunted vestibule and the main hall beyond it claimed all three of the building's stories and sprawled out over thirty-thousand square feet. It was like entering a cathedral.
A large, multi-faced admittance and service desk was sectioned off by a waist-high shell of stained and faded hardwood. The team had piled their packs of gear on the floor nearby there and stood in a loose huddle of rumbles, murmurs, and alertly turning glances.
The shorn rectangle of a room was entered and exited by several portals that were visible in the meager light which slanted in through so many tall, sectioned windows. Pairings of ESU personnel were positioned nearby to each of the ones on the ground floor. A triplet of tall, matching French doorways faced a rear courtyard. More illuminating still was the diffused daylight entering through a jagged hole in the ceiling. It was at least twenty-feet in diameter. Water poured in through several steady downspouts at its rough edges. Noisy spatters pooled and ran in muddy rivulets through dust, dirt, and grime. There was no discerning what material had originally been laid beneath their feet.
There wasn't much left.
The aforementioned collapse Rick spoke of during the briefing at the precinct had not been understated. It had been calamitous for the main hall. Well over half of the room simply dropped away in sheer slopes. Shattered stonework, bristling spikes of torn rebar, and splintered timbers bristling with rusted nails lined its edges like an unsettling esophagus rimmed with fangs. From what Finch's photographs revealed, she knew if it were a clear day the pour of sunlight through the hole in the roof would reveal the sickening sight awaiting two levels below and gathered en mass in the pool. Presently, however, it brooded in dimness down there like a swallowed secret trying to keep itself et.
"Why doesn't it stink?" she heard one of the men from ESU ask.
In fact, the hospital was fairly ripe with myriad sources of active decay, including the corpses farther down. Given that awaiting feature, however, Kate would have expected to be overpowered by the stench too. It was barely distinguishable from the other olfactory assaults.
"The major release of gases from initial decomposition are long done," Lanie provided neutrally. "It means they've been here a while. This crumbling must have been pretty recent. There wouldn't be much left otherwise. If an abundance of rainwater builds up in that pool we're going to be looking at a sharp acceleration of decay. The whole, uh…" She stopped, grimaced. "We could lose them all very quickly now that they're exposed to the natural elements."
"Great," someone else muttered. "Dead-guy soup."
Beckett turned sharply to see who had said it, but her pent-up admonishment was trundled over by sharp syllables from Kirkland. "Keep your fucking mouths shut and your eyes front. Or did you forget we had company on this island?" No one answered. "Doc," he added more calmly to Lanie, "we'll get you down there soon. I need a few minutes to organize who's staying and who's moving onward."
"Whoa, what?" Beckett turned from the view of the room to take her place in the huddle. The flashlight beams fixed to the others' chests rotated as they regarded her, effectively putting her under a spotlight. "What's going on?"
The ESU Lieutenant across from her hesitated an instant before answering, clearly sensing the onset of a disagreement. "We need to split-up our efforts. Some of my people will accompany you, Dr. Parish, and Dr. Hawkins downstairs. That's your guys' area of expertise—the actual crime scene. Mine is locating anyone else who might be waiting to be found on this island, hostile or otherwise."
"You've gotta be kidding me," she protested volubly.
A wave of uncomfortable silence broke and spread its upflow over the group for several distinct seconds. The tactical team clearly wasn't accustomed to being questioned in the field.
The frowning agent-in-charge answered stiffly, "With all the backtracking involved, it took us over forty minutes to clear the isolation cells downstairs and the area of the first two floors surrounding this hall. That was just the nearest rooms, mind you. That's not your fault," he added with a glance at Castle, who was indeed broadcasting discomfort, as if thinking he was letting them down as their guide. "It's too much space and too little accessibility," Kirkland continued while refocusing on Beckett. "If that other major building is anything like this—hell, even if it's not—we're only going to have enough time for a cursory run through it to search for any potential suspects or survivors. If we don't split up to tackle that now, it won't be an option. Given that it's the most viable site for habitation, I want it done."
"We have," she paused to check her watch, "just under two hours yet."
"And it won't be enough. I'm not going to attempt gaining more time by moving my team fast and blind through this kind of bush when we have potential hostiles present. You saw one guy. There could be ten more out there waiting for my people to give them a window of inattention to take advantage of."
The logic was sound. Kate knew that. She also knew that as their only guide, Rick was going to be assigned where he was needed most, which was with the active exploratory group.
"They don't need me downstairs. I'm going with you."
Kirkland winced and strode across the several feet separating them. His lowered voice was becoming laced with anger. "Can I talk to you in private?"
"They don't need me," Kate reiterated without budging. "It's evidence collection. I'm the one who tries to assemble the puzzle afterward using the pieces they put together."
That was hedging the truth mighty thin. Damned if Kirkland didn't know better.
Lanie spoke up, though clearly hesitant. "We have so little time, honey. We're going to need every pair of hands we can get downstairs. Even if these guys weren't too busy watching our backs to assist, they aren't trained in the procedures of evidence collection. You'd be a big help."
There was no good counter-argument in her mind. A lame attempt emerged, "Lieu." The lean of significance spoke volumes of her reluctance to split from her partner. A darted glance at the author revealed him staring back at her. He must have been equally opposed to the idea, but his lips curved in a small, melancholy smile. She read the defeat in it.
"We just don't have enough time," Kirkland sighed, not unsympathetic to her plight.
"You don't need her permission," Ethan spoke up from beyond them both.
"I'm not asking for it," the other shot back without looking away from her.
An unwelcoming tone didn't faze the interloper to their conversation much, but it was one of the other ESU guys who muttered, "Sure looks like it, Lieu. Let's just get moving. Sooner we start the sooner we're outta this freak show and this friggin' storm."
The tactical leader's eyes were wide and his expression livid as he turned, slow and certain, from squaring off with Kate to behold his subordinate. "Open that mouth one more time, Jones. I'm asking you to."
The addressed agent blanched. He didn't reply, but the scrunched tension of his posture cast off minute signals of potential rebellion. It was apparent in a few other faces too, which was concerning. This was not the time or place for the command structure to fall apart.
More influence of this dreadful place hard at work. Shit.
Beckett stepped between the riled pair of men to approach Castle. "You stay on Kirkland like glue, okay? Just…" She stopped, huffed. "Just be careful for Christ's sake."
Her companion's smile, such as it was at the time, didn't relent or expand. But it endured. "I would've done my best for your sake. No need to bring out the big guns."
"You've misunderstood the hierarchy of who you answer to now. Get yourself hurt or lost and divine punishment will seem like a sunny day in the park compared to my wrath."
Castle's eyes, pools of midnight blue and slashes of reflected light, widened in comical alarm. "Ten-four."
Kirkland, breathing easier, nodded to her as he passed them by and called out the names of several team members. The secondary huddle branched off for instruction while the investigative element of the group began disgorging and redistributing the gear they needed from Rick's and Ethan's packs.
"We're taking Dickson off your hands," the author commented quietly aside to her as they worked. "That ought to count for something, hrm?" He bumped her off-center with a brutish nudge of his shoulder and grinned when she pushed sharply back at him to lesser effect. That newfound muscle mass didn't sway so easily as it once had. Humor gusted apart like scattered dust when Castle added, quieter still, "You be careful too. Please?"
Something about the way his voice scraped over the single-word request elicited a pause to evaluate. He met her gaze without a change of expression but the wizened crinkles often lining the corners of his gaze when he was amused were present. Not in the spirit of humor.
Cheekiness left her high and dry. Beckett answered with a squeeze of his forearm.
Soon afterward the team assembled fully again at the front entrance. Four agents were going, including Kirkland and Jones, whose loose lips had apparently earned him being right where their agent-in-charge could keep an eye on him. Good choice.
Ulan and Eamon towered behind her. Beckett would have sent them with Rick. Of all the people she trusted to watch his back, they were optimal. She worried her goodwill with Kirkland was disappearing quickly, though, and lodged no protest.
"I want updates every two minutes," the Lieutenant instructed with a glance over the six troops remaining behind. "In fact, all of you should be on your tac-freqs from this point forward. Splitting up obviously wasn't the plan, but your radios were programmed to simplified controls. For example, Dr. Hawkins, you'd turn the dial on top to the number one for a channel that will be exclusive to your specific unit. Number two will be the group I'm taking. Three, which you should all be set on right now, is the general team frequency. Simple enough, yeah? Switch them off while you're on-scene downstairs if you must. Otherwise, stay tuned in."
He shifted where he stood and added, "While only three are in active use at all times, there are technically twelve options dedicated to this operation. If you need to communicate with someone directly, hail them to one of those alternates by stating their name and then the desired channel. I'd recommend starting with twelve and working backward since those are the least likely to be utilized by ops." Bless the man. He hadn't looked at Beckett or Castle directly while explaining. That was probably a pretty thin veneer over why the information had been included, but at least he hadn't singled them out.
"As for those main channels," Kirkland continued while focusing on Lanie and Joseph, "there's going to be a steady stream of chatter on the line that won't make much sense. It might be disorienting. There won't be many gaps and you might find yourself hesitant to interrupt. Don't be. Your guys' work specifically is all about noticing which details are missing from a crime scene or assessing others that are present but shouldn't be. That makes your input more valuable than anyone's."
Beckett shared a look with Lanie, who smirked back at her. It was hard to tell whether she was preening over the compliment or if she found the idea of being described as 'hesitant to interrupt' hilariously misplaced. Surely a bit a both.
"In addition to connecting all of us," their tactical leader continued, "this feed is being sent to a whole other team on the other end of the line who sort the raw data we give them and feed us back streamlined logistics. You're familiar with the design, I'm sure. I mention it now because you might get diverted to a private channel by one of them and instructed to go somewhere or turn your camera to get a better angle on something. Do the best you can to comply if that happens, but don't ever go off on your own. Someone will usually be assigned alongside you prior to any such request being made. In the event they aren't, you damn well find someone. I mean it," he added with stern gaze raking over the assembly. "Don't even turn a corner without one of us leading the way."
The pair of doctors looked a little uneasy. They nodded.
"Alright," Kirkland sighed. "Beckett, it's your show on this end. Bielsa is my second."
The detective glanced briefly back at the woman who had braved the island's underbelly not long ago in the woods. No hesitation, no ordering someone else to do it. The woman had simply acted on behalf of the moment's necessity. She frowned under Kate's scrutiny and nodded stiffly before refocusing on Kirkland.
"She'll keep everyone coordinated in the absence of anything you specifically ask for. When both teams have completed their respective tasks, we'll select a rendezvous and head back to the boat together." Kirkland's dark gaze passed across his subordinates behind her again, no doubt seeking signs of trouble or unrest about leaving her in charge. Nothing worthy of concern must have been evident because he nodded in seeming satisfaction and turned away to exit. "Alright then. Let's move."