Chapter 11
It was another photograph, and I clenched every muscle in my body to keep my face blank and my stomach under wraps.
Stephanie… no, not Stephanie. The victim, the subject, the target… It's just another case, just another anonymous victim, I repeated to myself over and over again. Concentrate on the details, not on the woman.
A bare, shabby mattress covered by ancient ticking, dark blue and once white, now dingy brown stripes blotched with stains of various revolting hues…
Resting on the dusty boards of a rough wooden floor that had been painted brown but was now peeling and worn and pocked…
A patch of wall of an indeterminate neutral color, grimy and faded and decrepit…
A shackle around a bare ankle, a long chain extending out of the bottom corner of the frame…
Handcuffs binding bruised and scraped wrists behind the back, shoulders flexed, leaving the naked form exposed in spite of being curled on its side, knees to chest, tucked in fetal position…
Angry red welts speckling legs and torso, some kind of insect bites…
Multicolored bruises everywhere, visible eye swollen shut and black, lip split, dark dried blood below the nose, boot marks on the thighs and buttocks, dark fingerprint bruises on the side of the breast…
I closed my eyes, concentrating on nothingness, emptying my mind. But the picture was burned onto the inside of my eyelids.
I forced my eyes back open.
Wild, frizzy afro hair held away from the face by a rough hand…
The hand, analyze the hand. The first glimpse of our prey, the object of our investigation. My enemy…
Left hand. Light brown skin, race could be tanned white, Latino, light-skinned black, even possibly Asian.
Thick fingers with large knuckles crossed by deep lines. Not young, not old. Middle aged.
Broad hand with prominent veins and puckered, lighter pinkish skin forming a widening pathway from the back of the hand over the wrist and up the arm to the edge of the photo. Old burn scars.
The perp. Not a subordinate, I was certain of it, as certain as my conviction that he was somehow connected to my past.
I studied the photo for another moment, analyzing, not allowing myself to feel, and then flipped it over.
The same bold, black angular printing as the first photo.
I planned to kill her
but this is much better
I stood so rapidly that my wheeled chair flew backwards and would have hit the wall if Tank, standing at my shoulder, hadn't caught it.
"Dino, take it to the lab. Find something," I said as I turned toward the door of the room, peeling off my gloves as I moved.
"Range-man," Tank said as I hit the doorway, gaining momentum. "Meeting in ten."
"Be right back," I answered from the hallway, barreling toward the stairwell and the cool, dim sanctuary of my apartment.
oOo
Fifteen minutes later I walked back into the conference room, my face expressionless, my hair wet. I'd adjusted the pulsating shower heads to maximum strength, letting the pounding of the scalding water work on my rigid muscles, scrubbing myself all over with a rough cloth, trying to wash away the anguish and guilt and fear.
I was late for the meeting, and I was never late. And the instant I entered the room and saw the photograph filling the large monitor screen on the far wall, the feelings I'd hammered down in the shower came flooding back. I sank into my chair at the head of the table, fighting to maintain control and feeling a roomful of concerned eyes on me.
Exercising a Herculean effort to control my breathing and my emotions, I looked around the room.
Seated at the table were the primary task force members, Tank, Lester, and Bobby from RangeMan, Morelli representing TPD, the two FBI agents, Murphy and Foster. Other task force members included a small, dark Latino named Tomas Gonzalez from the DEA; ATF agent Bryant Simmons, young and scruffy, blonde and bearded, pulled in from an undercover assignment in Philly; and a useless, thirty-something Homeland Security woman named Eva Caterson. An empty armchair at the foot of the table awaited Alvirez when he was finished with the analysis.
In straight chairs around the perimeter of the room were the others from my initial RangeMan team: Manny and Zero, Hal and Ram, Vince and Woody.
"Report," I commanded, keeping my voice strong and low, not allowing the quaking I was feeling inside to escape the prison of my body.
Tank, at my right hand, began. "Dino has the photo. There are no prints, no trace. He'll analyze the paper and ink, but he's already ninety-nine percent sure they're identical to the first picture. He's looking at the envelope now."
Tank continued smoothly, seamlessly taking over control of the group. "Bobby, Lester and I have cleared another dozen or so potentials in the Middle East." He turned to Murphy on his right, raising an eyebrow.
"We've located and ruled out nine more subjects from the East Coast. We're working our way across the country and will be flying to Chicago tonight for a few days to look at some possibilities."
Gonzalez was next. "I've been interfacing with RangeMan Miami and briefed Raptor on the subjects who might be in the Southeast. He'll take care of locating and evaluating them." Raptor was Ramon Flores, managing partner in the Miami office and one of my longtime Special Forces brothers. I would trust him with my life. He was also one of the best trackers in the world, both in the wild and in civilized settings, with an uncanny ability to find fugitives. If we ever got any kind of slim lead, he'd be heading up the tracing effort.
Gonzales continued, "There are at least twelve subjects who are either confirmed or highly likely in South America. Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, one in Brazil. I'm leaving in a couple hours."
The shrill beep of the phone in the center of the conference table interrupted, making Caterson squeak and clutch her chest. Tank reached out a long arm and pulled it down to our end of the table, punching the speaker button.
"Talk," I commanded.
Alvirez's tinny voice echoed from the speaker. "I've got a print on the envelope."
oOo
Chapter 12
Hope fluttered in my chest like a hummingbird, tiny and erratic. "Is it in the system?" I demanded.
Alvirez responded, "Yes, it comes back to a postal worker, guy by the name of Frederick Hayes, mail carrier out of the main Trenton Distribution Center."
I was on my feet. "Dino, bag the envelope and bring it to the garage. Tank, Lester, Bobby, let's go."
"We're coming, too," Murphy interjected, jerking his head at Foster. "We can help cut through the red tape."
I gave a single nod of my head and hastened out the door.
oOo
The TPDC, Trenton Processing and Distribution Center, was a huge, warehouse-like structure in an industrial-commercial area of suburban Hamilton Township, just outside Trenton. Murphy and Foster's FBI credentials got us from the public access area into the administrative section, and directly to the office of the station manager, a rotund elf of a man with wisps of white hair sprouting above his ears.
His looks were deceiving, however. He spoke with authority and precision, and once he heard that we were investigating a kidnapping, he gave his full cooperation.
Twenty minutes after we arrived, we were seated in uncomfortable chairs at a government-issue conference table in a sparely furnished room. The door opened and the elf ushered in a heavyset middle-aged black man, introducing him as Frederick Hayes.
Foster's look was a request, and I gave her a small nod. She was black, a woman, and the least threatening person in the room. Although I really wanted to question him myself, it was probably best to save the intimidation factor until we caught all the flies we could with honey.
"Mr. Hayes," Foster began, rising and shaking his hand. "My name is Barbara Foster, and I'm an FBI agent."
She pulled out her ID and held it so he could read it while she introduced the rest of us. Murphy also showed his FBI ID, and I pulled out my military ID for an additional show of strength.
"Please have a seat, Mr. Hayes," Foster continued, waiting as he thudded down into a chair and then seating herself across the table from him. "We're looking into the kidnapping of a local woman from Trenton three weeks ago. We received a communication from the kidnapper and found your fingerprint on the envelope."
Hayes' eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. "Yuh… you don't think I had anything to do with it, do you?"
"Did you?" My voice was harsh, causing Foster to shoot me a dagger-edged look.
Hayes turned his attention to me and his face paled noticeably in spite of the dark color of his skin. He swallowed, his throat muscles laboring. "N… N… No, sir."
"Mr. Hayes," Foster broke in, oozing kindness, drawing his attention back to her. "We have no reason to suspect you in the kidnapping. What we were hoping to find out from you is where you might have possibly handled this envelope."
She extended a hand and Lester passed her the plastic-enclosed brown kraft envelope. Hayes took the envelope and studied it, looking at the postmark, turning it over to look at the back. Alvirez had already lifted the print, but there were smudges of fingerprint powder remaining.
"It's postmarked the twenty-second, so I must have picked it up sometime during my route yesterday." Foster was tentative at first, but his voice gained confidence as he went on. "I drive a pickup route on weekdays starting at six a.m. and collect mail from fifty-two street boxes in the southern half of the city, from here to Market and Greenwood. Then I bring the mail in, break for lunch and do the same thing all over again. And that's my day."
"How many pieces of mail do you actually touch?" Foster asked.
"Well, since the whole anthrax thing we're supposed to wear gloves whenever we touch a piece of mail." Hayes cast a sideways glance at the elf and then continued, "But it's really uncomfortable wearing the gloves all day, so I don't usually bother. I never touch any letters anyway unless there's a piece that's falling out of the collection bin. I just pull the bin out of the box, empty it into the large crate in the back of my truck and put it back. Sometimes a piece will miss the bin and then I'll pick it up with my hand, but that doesn't happen too often, maybe only a couple times a week."
"Could you do me a favor, Mr. Hayes?" Foster asked. "Would you mind just closing your eyes for a minute and talking us through your route yesterday?"
"Ma'am, my route is the same every day, twice a day, five days a week for the past four years. I don't know how I can remember yesterday any different than the day before or the day before that."
"Could you just humor me? Please, sir?"
"Well, okay, I'll do my best," Hayes said, but he was shaking his head as he said it. I clenched my hands into fists under the table to keep myself from leaping up, grabbing his throat and shaking him until whatever might be in his subconscious came soaring out like a feathered shuttlecock for me to catch in my hands.
"Why don't you start by telling us about your morning? Anything unusual that happened, what you had for breakfast, whatever will take you back to yesterday."
Hayes leaned back as far as the awkward angle of the chair allowed and clasped his hands together on his substantial belly. Looking off into the distance beyond the far wall of the room he began.
"My wife and I had a fight yesterday morning. So I was in a bad mood all morning. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she called me on my cell phone while I was in the middle of my route to carp at me some more. She wants us to go visit our daughter and her family in California, and we just don't have the money to fly out there."
He heaved a sigh. "I was juggling my phone in one hand and trying to empty a box with the other and I ended up dropping the whole thing." His eyes focused on Foster. "I told my wife I had to go so I could pick up the mail off the ground. I bet that's how I touched that envelope."
I gripped the arms of my chair and started to rise, but Foster held a hand up to stop me. "Mr. Hayes, where was that box?"
"Corner of South Broad and Bridge."
Right on the edge of the Burg, and also convenient to downtown.
"Do you remember picking up an envelope like this one off the ground?"
"Well, there were all different sizes and types. There were several of those, I'm pretty sure."
I immediately started planning in my mind. We'd need to get surveillance on that box right away. And investigate the area, see if there were any businesses with security cameras that might show us the box. Interview the residents and businesses with views of the box to see if anyone saw the perp drop the envelope in.
I sat impatiently as Foster led Hayes through the rest of his day, with no more dropped mail, nothing more happening. Then I thanked him and asked the elf if we could remain in the conference room for a few minutes. I had orders to give.
Stephanie had been gone twenty-one days.
oOo
Chapter 13
The next morning—Saturday, May 24
I came very close to falling apart after the tension of Friday—the photo, the visit to the TPDC. Friday night I stayed in my office until the middle of the night, still going over mission files and dredging up the grim details, writing down what names I remembered. Around 0300 I headed up to the seventh floor for a shower and an attempt at sleep.
But the second my head hit the pillow the thoughts started roiling around in my brain, overwhelming me with memories of Stephanie and overlaying the things I did in defense of freedom, the people I killed, even tortured, for the good of my country. The real reason I could never have a relationship with Stephanie.
After our one night together I'd sent her back to Morelli, telling her my lifestyle didn't lend itself to relationships, letting her think it was because of the uncertainty of my schedule, the missions I still took on, even perhaps that I didn't really care enough for her. But that wasn't the real reason.
It was my past.
And not just fear that the enemies I've made might harm her.
I loved that she thought of me as a hero, as Batman. I didn't want her to know the truth, what I really was, what I've done. I couldn't stand to see the disappointment in her eyes. A weakness on my part, but Stephanie had a way of bringing out my vulnerabilities.
At 0500 I was up and out the garage entrance, running fast and hard, taking my ten-mile route at a punishing pace, trying to find a zone that would banish the wretchedness in my heart.
As I ran down Brunswick, for no real reason I found myself detouring onto Paul Avenue, slowing to a jog. By the time I passed the brick edifice of St. James Church I was walking. I continued past as far as the corner and then turned back. Without thinking, I walked up the front steps and tried the door.
Surprised to find it unlocked, I automatically dipped my fingers into the holy water in the font and crossed myself before stepping into the empty nave. Some things are so firmly ingrained in us from an impressionable age that they remain for the rest of our lives, no matter what else intervenes.
I hadn't entered a church other than for a couple of family weddings in twenty years, since I was sent to juvie at age fifteen. What I went through there destroyed the faith my parents took such pains to instill in me, and my years in the service further convinced me that hell certainly existed but heaven did not.
Until I met Stephanie. She brought light back into my life. Goodness was the best word I could think of to describe her aura. It radiated from her, shone from every pore. She cared about the people she came into contact with—her friends, her family, her skips, even people she didn't know. Even a surly, badass bounty hunter who had done things that would be inconceivable to her, that would have appalled her if she knew.
Yes, she knew about Abruzzi. But she didn't really know. She hadn't seen it happen, and I hadn't told her. He was pure evil, and he would have either killed her or damaged her irreparably if I hadn't taken him out. It may have been against the law, but I was a hundred percent certain it was the morally right thing to do. The world was a better place without Abruzzi in it, and Stephanie knew that.
Luckily Stephanie had a great capacity for denial. Abruzzi's torture of her might have destroyed her, but she was rescued in time and managed to banish it from her mind. By the time her burn healed, the horror of the experience was pushed so far back into her subconscious that it would likely never emerge.
While thinking about Stephanie I wandered to the side of the church, where there was a small chapel with a shrine to the blessed Virgin. A single candle burned in the rows of prayer candles, probably lit by whoever had unlocked the church so very early this morning. The priest, perhaps, praying for grace in the day ahead.
I dropped to the kneeler, automatically reciting to myself, Hail Mary, full of grace… I lit a candle for Stephanie and knelt there, head down, mind emptied, opening my heart and reaching out for something tenuous, ethereal—God, Stephanie, I didn't know what.
Please God, please God, I prayed over and over and over again, like a mantra.
My heart felt like a clenched fist in my chest, and I lit another candle.
Please God, please God…
I remained still, and for the first time since my childhood I was completely unaware of my surroundings, with no concept of the passage of time.
I was brought back to awareness by my phone vibrating in the pocket of my running pants. As I reached blindly for it I realized my face was wet with tears and every single candle in front of me was lit.
I glanced at the phone display. Tank. I flipped it open. "Talk," I said quietly, not wanting to disturb the silence of the church.
"Boss, got the overnight reports. Nothing."
"Okay. I'll be back in a half hour."
As I closed the phone I looked at the display again, wondering what time it was. 0714. I'd been here for almost two hours.
As I creaked to my feet on stiff knees I reached into another pocket and pulled out the folded bills I always carried, even when running. I was never without several hundred dollars in cash, prepared for anything. I peeled a hundred off the roll and dropped it into the donation box, using my forearm to swipe the tears from my cheeks.
Just before I turned toward the door, I shoved the rest of the bills into the box.
Stephanie had been gone twenty-two days.
TBC