Four Walls Page 13

  A pity he didn't get one.

  The pharmacy opened at eight, he knew. Flack intended to be there as soon as the gate went up.

  So what if it was weak. Sometimes weakness was a strength.

  * * *

  Seeing the video on the web, watching herself making love to a man she thought she knew.

  "So I broke up with Frankie right then and there. Told him I never wanted to see him again."

  Sneaking up on her in the parking lot, wondering why she wouldn't return his phone calls, as if he didn't know.

  "Did you think it was funny? Did you think it would turn me on?"

  Walking into the apartment to find him standing there, lighting candles, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

  "It's one of my rules: no men in my place. Just in case things go bad, I always have a safe place to go to."

  Rushing to the phone to call 911-or Flack or the landlord, somebody-only to have him rip the phone out of the wall and throw it across the room with a clatter. Suddenly everything changes: a seemingly harmless guy who won't take no for an answer has become dangerous.

  "All right, that's it. I'm making a phone call."

  Feeling the phone cord bite into her wrists behind her back as he ties her up, angrily wondering how she could treat him like one of the suspects she meets at work, never mind that he's acting just like one himself.

  "I loved your statue-so beautiful. And I loved all the I-love-you messages. And I really meant to call you-I did."

  Sitting in the bathtub, her fingers slick with her own blood as she tries desperately to grip the blade that she'd managed to pry out of her leg razor so she could slice the phone cord apart and be free.

  "I remember the doorbell ringing-but I don't know why."

  Digging through the handbag with bloody fingers, trying desperately to find and hold her Glock, when he comes leaping over the divider, knocking her to the floor with a bone-jarring impact.

  "You caught me off guard. Can you blame me?"

  He grabs the Glock and tries to shoot her, but he doesn't know how to shoot a handgun and never takes the safety off. She takes advantage of his confusion and grabs the weapon from his hand.

  "That's the name and number of my lawyer, Courtney Bracey. You want to talk to me, set it up with her."

  Stella bolted upright.

  It wasn't the first time she'd dreamed about that terrible night when Frankie Mala broke into her apartment and held her captive. Usually, any mention of a rape or kidnapping or sexual assault triggered that reaction.

  But this time, it had been Jack Morgenstern in the dream, taking Frankie's place. Morgenstern who tied her up, Morgenstern who tried to shoot her, Morgenstern whom she was about to shoot three times in the chest.

  Rubbing her eyes while sitting in the very bed where Frankie had tied her up, she looked over at the clock radio on the end table, which told her that it was a little before five.

  She was getting up in a few hours anyhow. This morning, she had a meeting with the ADA to go over next week's testimony in the Osborne case, then it was back to the grind with the Maria Campagna murder-which was obviously preying on her mind if the prime suspect was showing up in her dreams.

  As she padded to the kitchen-the same kitchen where she'd found Frankie blithely setting the table-she reflected with frustration on how little useful evidence they actually had. There was no sign of Maria's fingernail on Morgenstern's clothes, nor anywhere in his house. The bruise that was forming on Morgenstern's chest was shaped vaguely enough that it could have come from the impact of a teenager's protected foot, or a woman's fist, or both.

  Everything at the lab was getting bumped for Mac's prison case, so Stella didn't know the results of the trace left on Maria's knuckles yet. She just had to hope they'd discover something definitive there.

  They also hadn't found Maria's necklace in Morgenstern's house. Angell had double-checked with Maria's mother, and she said Maria had indeed worn the necklace when she left for work the previous day.

  Any decent lawyer would blow through that evidence like a shotgun through cardboard, and Bracey-no matter how annoying she might be-was more than a decent lawyer.

  They needed the proverbial smoking gun.

  Stella liked it better when criminals were stupid. Then they were easy to intimidate with circumstantial evidence. Morgenstern, though, wouldn't intimidate easily, especially after what he went through on that rape case.

  She had read up on Morgenstern's case. The actual rapist didn't look anything like Morgenstern, but he did match the general description. The victim never got a good look at her attacker, so her ID of him wasn't solid, but Morgenstern's alibi for the time of the rape had simply been that he was alone in his Belmont apartment, which hadn't helped his case.

  In all fairness, Stella could see how he would be wary of the NYPD after being put through the wringer like that.

  But at the end of the day, he was still the most viable suspect they had.

  They just needed to prove it.

  She needed to prove it.

  Walking to the counter, she put on a pot of coffee. No sense trying to get back to sleep now. She'd down some caffeine, shower, and maybe go to the gym. She suddenly felt the need to take out her frustrations on an innocent punching bag.

  * * *

  I'm jogging, just like I do every night.

  The night wind is blowing in my face.

  The car takes the place of the wind, shining light that blinds me.

  I know the drill. I don't stop them from searching me.

  I think it's insane, but I know better than to resist.

  That's what they taught me, you do what the cops tell you to do.

  I don't know where the money in my pocket came from. I don't know why they're handcuffing me.

  I do know how it makes me feel. I'm helpless. No control. Just like in the ER, when the patient won't come back to life no matter what I do.

  No control.

  A man says I shot someone. I don't know what he's talking about.

  A lawyer tells me he's on my side, even though he questions me the same way a suspect is questioned.

  I'm put in jail, forced to wear a prison uniform instead of my own clothes.

  I'm handcuffed if I'm taken anywhere outside the prison.

  And then he comes to visit me.

  Shane Casey.

  He did this to me.

  He took my control away. And no one will believe me.

  Hawkes woke up as his alarm went off. He was still having the dream.

  Part of him figured he should talk to that departmental shrink. Mac had recommended it after he was released, but it wasn't a requirement. Maybe he'd ask Stella how it worked out for her after Frankie attacked her.

  Or maybe he'd just talk to Stella. She'd been tied up and threatened, her wrists bound as if they were handcuffed. She knew what it was like to be helpless.

  To lose control.

  Sitting in his darkened apartment, the lights of the city that never slept casting odd shadows in his bedroom, Sheldon Hawkes was willing to admit that the thing that scared him more than anything else was losing control. He became a doctor so he could control life and death, only to find that life and death weren't anywhere near as easy to wrangle as he'd led himself to believe.

  It had been too much, so he fled the hospital for the morgue. His patients were already dead, so he couldn't kill them there. He had his control back.

  Then Shane Casey took it all away from him. Just so he could clear the name of his brother-who turned out to be exactly as guilty as the jury had found him.

  It was all for nothing.

  Sometimes, Hawkes thought that was the worst part of it all. Casey's loyalty to his brother was touching but misplaced.

  And all it cost was a little piece of Sheldon Hawkes's soul.

  He hadn't gone running since that night. It wasn't that he was afraid to, exactly, he just didn't want to risk reliving it.

&n
bsp; That was a sort of fear, wasn't it?

  Maybe he did have things to discuss with the shrink.

  However, that could wait until after this case was put down. Peyton had said when he left for the day that she had to check a few things against Washburne's medical records at RHCF before she would release the autopsy report. She was also being cagey about her findings, not even filing a prelim. At the time, she had said it was because, with Gerrard breathing down her neck, she didn't want to jump to any conclusions, and that excuse certainly had the ring of believability about it.

  But Hawkes had been an ME too long not to know the signs. Peyton had found something that didn't make sense, and she didn't want to tell anyone about it until she had an answer or had proven to herself that an answer was not to be found.

  He hoped it was the former.

  Hawkes performed all his morning ablutions and rituals, then hopped the R train uptown to work.

  Stella was waiting in the elevator bank when he arrived. "Morning, Stella."

  "Hey, Sheldon. How's your prison riot going?"

  "One's a dunker-guy confessed, evidence matched up. Unfortunately, the other one's Washburne. We've got a suspect, but I'm still waiting for Peyton's report."

  She smiled. "I envy you. I've got a suspect, too, and Sid's done his report, but it's all way too circumstantial."

  Unable to miss the fact that Stella wasn't making eye contact, Hawkes stared straight at her and said, "You okay?"

  Finally, she met his gaze.

  Hawkes recognized the haunted look in her eyes. It was the same one he saw in the mirror after waking up from that damn dream.

  "Bad dreams?" he asked.

  "How'd you guess?" She didn't actually sound that surprised.

  "Experience. Wanna get a drink after the shift's over and compare night terrors?"

  She smiled. "You're on, Doc."

  With a telltale ding, the elevator arrived. They both got on, went to their floor, and disembarked.

  As soon as they got off, Stella's Treo rang. She looked down at the display, said, "Angell," then put the phone to her ear. "What's up, Jen? Really? Okay. I've got a meeting, but I'll send Lindsay up to meet you."

  "What is it?" Hawkes asked.

  She gave him a grin. "The proverbial break in the case. Our vic was missing a necklace, and Angell said it just turned up. I gotta go find Lindsay. I'll see you later, Sheldon."

  Stella peeled off and went in search of Lindsay. Hawkes continued toward the break room to get some coffee, only to find Peyton Driscoll waiting for him. She was holding what looked very much like an autopsy report in her hand.

  "I'm afraid I have some disturbing news," she said by way of greeting.

  "I had a feeling."

  She frowned. "Are you becoming a psychic, Sheldon?"

  "No, but when you don't file a prelim, I know something's up," Hawkes said. "Give it to me straight, Doc, I can take it."

  "I have a cause of death for Malik Washburne, nй Gregory Washburne, and it is most assuredly not blunt force trauma to the head. Rather, it was asphyxiation due to the closing of the throat as a result of an allergic reaction."

  Eyes wide, Hawkes took the report from Peyton and started flipping through it. "Allergic to what?"

  "That," she said with a sigh, "is the question. I haven't the foggiest."

  He looked at her, then led the way out of the break room toward Mac's office. "C'mon, we'd better talk to Mac. And, if we're really unlucky, to Gerrard, too."

  14

  TAYVON OLIVERA WAS REALLY looking forward to putting the beat-down on Jorge Melendez.

  Truth be told, he wanted a piece of Jack Mulroney, too. But Mulroney had half the COs in RHCF all over him, and he'd probably be arrested soon for knifing Vance Barker. The bastard would get to see the outside just long enough to go through the cop house again. Then maybe he'd get sent to some max-security place like Sing Sing.

  They were hard-core there. Mulroney would get his, Tayvon was sure of that. He wouldn't last three seconds.

  Tayvon just wished he could be the one to bring him down.

  Meantime, he'd get his shot at that bastard Melendez.

  In some ways, Tayvon was in RHCF because of Malik Washburne. But he figured he was still alive because of him, also. Back in the day, Tayvon was doping and getting into fights. He tried to box but got his ass thrown onto the street after the first time he peed in a cup.

  Things got so bad, Tayvon ran out of money for his coke fix, so he started stealing. When he got caught, the judge ordered him to go to the Kinson Rehab Center.

  That was where Tayvon met Malik Washburne. At first, Tayvon didn't want anything to do with a cop, even if he wasn't a cop anymore. But Malik kept at him, helping him through the rehab, sitting up with him while he went through the DTs.

  Tayvon didn't really go for religion-it wasn't his thing-but after spending so much time with Malik, he did respect the Nation of Islam. In particular, he respected what they had done for the Original Man. He didn't really believe in it, but folks like Malik and Hakim el-Jabbar, he had mad respect for them and people like them who preached the word. Even if the words didn't really mean anything to Tayvon, they meant something to other people.

  Black folks who listened to people like Hakim and Malik, they felt better about who they were. They weren't ashamed of the color of their skin. Tayvon was down with that.

  Like Malik before him, Hakim respected Tayvon's lack of faith, because Tayvon didn't do bullshit. He didn't try to pretend to be faithful because it might do him some good. Nah, Tayvon just did his business, and he got caught. Yeah, he was off the coke, but he was still a big dude who was good at beat-downs. So he started working for folks he used to buy his dope from-as well as taking legit bouncer and bodyguard jobs. One time, he beat up somebody that actually filed a police report, and for the second time, Tayvon got nailed by the cops.

  No rehab-he had to do his time, but that was cool. He'd be out in the street once he did his bit, and then it'd be back to business.

  Until then, he was more than happy to put a beat-down on some fool who had earned it.

  And Melendez had. That little punk-ass fool didn't believe in Allah or Mohammed or none of that other stuff any more than Tayvon did, but Melendez tried to make like he did. Even went to Malik's Koran class.

  That was why Tayvon wasn't surprised when word came down from Hakim: Melendez killed Malik. Well, okay, he was a little surprised that a punk like Melendez had had the balls to do the deed. But after that throw-down they had in Malik's class, Tayvon figured Melendez had enough of a mad-on to take Malik out. Besides, he did it while everyone was watching Mulroney ice Vance.

  And that was weak. Vance didn't do nothing wrong. Okay, so he slid hard, so the hell what? Tayvon saw somebody pull that on Derek Jeter just last week, and Jeter didn't go stabbing the guy with a razor.

  Tayvon had no idea how Hakim knew that Melendez was the one who did in Malik, but Hakim was always knowing things he wasn't supposed to. His word was good enough for Tayvon.

  The deed would be done in the shower that morning. He wouldn't have long, but the shower was the best time, especially since it could wash away blood. Besides, Tayvon had been doing push-ups on his knuckles for twenty years. As long as he punched with the first two knuckles, nobody would even know he'd punched anyone.

  Bolton was the CO watching the showers, but he kept his distance. There were two other COs in sight, too, which was weird, but Tayvon figured after what went down in the yard, everyone was a little squirrelly.

  Tayvon grabbed the soap and lathered himself up. It had been a long night stuck in the dorms, which weren't air-conditioned, and the COs decided to be assholes and keep the fans off, too. Tayvon spent the whole night sweating like a mother.

  Of course, the water was practically ice cold and the pressure was down. Tayvon figured that was on purpose, too. Damn hacks, always messing with them.

  "Yo, Bolton," somebody yelled, "what's with the damn water?"


  "Is it wet?" Bolton asked.

  "Well, yeah, but-"

  "Then shut the hell up."

  Even dribbly cold water felt good after sleeping in an oven all night, so Tayvon enjoyed it while he waited for the right moment.

  After yelling at the guy who mouthed off, Bolton turned away from the showers, shaking his head in annoyance.

  Tayvon took advantage of this opportunity to move closer to Melendez. It wasn't hard-ever since he and Malik got into it, nobody'd been all that fond of Melendez. Hakim had accused him of being a carpetbagging Muslim. Tayvon didn't know what that meant, but it didn't sound very good.

  Then Tayvon looked around until he caught Hakim's eye. At his nod, several other people moved so they were standing in Bolton's line of sight. Even if Bolton turned around, all he'd see would be a dozen wet bodies, and not Tayvon beating the holy crap out of Jorge Melendez.

  First Tayvon closed his eyes, slowing his breathing down. That was something they taught him in martial arts school back when he was a kid, which was where he got started doing the push-ups on his knuckles. Hurt like hell, but it was worth it. Sometimes, Tayvon thought he should've stuck with martial arts, but at the time, he liked cocaine more.

  Once his breathing was nice and regular, he placed one of his massive hands on top of Melendez's head. Tayvon was almost a full head taller than Melendez, so it was like grabbing a golf ball on a tee and turning it around.

  Rearing back with his other hand, he punched Melendez in the solar plexus.

  While Tayvon remembered very little of the specifics of his martial arts training, he did remember a few things. One was how useful it was to do push-ups on your knuckles in order to toughen your fists and make your punches more effective. In a life spent beating people up, both as a bouncer in legit bars and strip clubs and working for slingers and bangers, that lesson had stuck real good.