88 Killer (35 page)
Authors: Oliver Stark
The Brooklyn Library
March 15, 7.05 a.m.
‘L
afayette, it’s Harper. We lost the killer. We chased him to Bed-Stuy and he disappeared. Eddie’s in the hospital – he’ll tell you everything.’
Lafayette was pacing his room. ‘Shootings at the Forensic Unit, Harper? An operation I knew nothing about? Is this right what I’m hearing? I’m telling you, get back here now.’
‘I can’t. He’s going to do something. He’s taking big risks. He’s feeling the pressure. You’ve got to let me do what I can to try to find him.’
‘The Chief of Detectives has called me in, Harper. You know what he’s saying? I’ve fucked up. I can’t lead my men. And you, Harper, you’ve let this case run away with you.’
‘I’d like to listen to the lecture, Captain, but I’m running out of time.’
‘Don’t you dare hang up. I’ll have you on a charge, Harper.’
‘Then I can’t come in until this is finished, you understand.’ Harper hung up and turned to Denise. ‘This has to work. We’ve got to find out who this killer is.’
‘No one knows if it will or won’t help, but Aaron has been working through the library stacks. He thinks it’s the only link.’
‘What’s he got?’
‘Just like we said – the book on Sturbe was in very few libraries.
He know our killer is local, so we can presume his local library was in Brooklyn. Only one Brooklyn library held his book.’
‘And this is it?’ said Harper, looking up at the dark Gothic façade.
‘Dr Goldenberg’s already inside. We had to get the librarian to come in and open specially for us.’
‘I’ll leave you here,’ said Harper. ‘I’m going to see Eddie and then I’m going to see if those patrol cops got any leads in Bed-Stuy. If there’s nothing, I’ll be talking to the agents selling Nazi memorabilia, see if they got me anything. Call me.’
Aaron Goldenberg brushed a thick layer of dust off an old volume. His face was growing more drawn each day. Denise put her hand out and touched his arm. ‘She’ll be okay.’
‘She’s been missing so long. Be honest with me, Denise, what are her chances?’
‘We got to keep trying, got to keep believing that she’s still alive.’
‘I will try,’ he said. He looked around the room. ‘I spend a lot of time here.’
‘Studying?’
‘Now, yes, but as a kid I didn’t study much. Like Abby. She’s lazy too.’
‘Didn’t think of you as the rebel type.’
He took out his reading glasses and put them on, then he walked along the stacks, saying, ‘Come on, let’s be quick. Abby’s out there, right? The answer’s in here, yes?’
Denise saw a long line of old filing cabinets. ‘Yes, Aaron. In here. We just got to find it. You go that way, I’ll see if they’ve got a catalog.’
‘Sure,’ he said, ‘but it won’t necessarily lead you to the book.’
‘It doesn’t need to, does it?’
‘Guess not.’ Aaron Goldenberg moved slowly down each aisle, moving his eyes up and down the rows. He knew the numbering system. ‘They never moved to Dewey. They never liked Dewey.’
‘And why’s that?’
‘Stupid system.’
‘Really?’
‘No. Dewey set up a club. It excluded Jews. Hard to swallow.’
‘The truth often is,’ said Denise. She located the catalog. ‘These aren’t in title or author order. What do I look for?’
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On the judgment of the librarian. Sturbe’s story could come under a number of headings. Biography, Military History, Holocaust, Infamous Jews, Criminal Minds.’
‘Great.’
‘You just have to use your instinct. If it was here, it’ll be in the catalog. I never knew the book. Not my thing as a boy.’
‘What was your thing? Rabbinical texts? Kabbalah?’
‘You have me down as an academic, Dr Levene.’
‘You are, aren’t you?’
‘I am now. Back then, no. Back then I liked Harold Robbins.’
‘Seriously?’
Aaron nodded. ‘I hid his books in Rabbinical texts.’ His face creased. Every few minutes she could see the horrible thoughts crossing his mind. He was trying to keep himself together, but it wasn’t easy. He was tortured by the imaginings that he couldn’t keep from appearing
Denise felt his pain. She knelt by the side of the first filing cabinet and pulled out the old metal drawers. The whiff of mold and mildew mixed with the puff of fungus dust. She leaned back. ‘I’ll start with Biography.’
‘Please do,’ said Aaron.
Silence fell in the room. Aaron’s slow footsteps continued to move along each shelf, and Denise’s search was punctuated by the squeal of old runners. She flicked through the old cards, her eyes looking for the single word.
Sturbe
. He wasn’t in Biography, or under Criminal Minds, or under Holocaust. Denise shut the drawer. ‘There’s only a dozen entries under Holocaust.’
Aaron stopped and looked up. ‘Holocaust. Yes. Specifically titles addressing the generic topic. Anything else will be under a more specific title.’
Denise looked down the letters on the front of the cabinets.
She thought about Tom Harper and looked at her watch. He’d be wanting a call by now.
Her eyes stopped on the ‘W’. She opened the drawer and flicked the files forward. She stopped at
Warsaw
.
‘Aaron,’ she called out. ‘She filed it under the Warsaw Ghetto.’
Aaron moved quickly towards her, with his face full of expectation. ‘You found it! Come on, Denise. We’ve got to be quick.’
Denise held up the card.
Sturbe: The Story of a Jew
by Malachai Jiresh. The writing was on a pink card that had faded all along the top edge. The typing was old and in two colors, half blue, half red with some letters light on the page. She handed it to Aaron.
‘I didn’t think we’d find it,’ he said. Tears would’ve come, but he shook his head. He let the feelings turn hard and tried to focus his mind. He looked at the number.
‘H.831.33.2,’ he repeated.
Denise and Aaron ran back up the stairs. ‘You don’t want to find the book?’ she asked.
‘I want the bastard’s name, not the book,’ he panted.
‘I understand,’ said Denise.
They rose up the wooden stairs and into the light.
Denise approached the desk. The library wasn’t open but she saw the bright-eyed woman who’d helped get them access to the archives. ‘We found the reference.’
‘Well, then,’ said the woman, ‘if you’ve got the book number, I’ll see what I can get you.’
The woman disappeared. Thirty minutes later she came back. ‘It’s not good, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.’
‘What? It’s not there?’ said Aaron.
‘No, please, come this way.’
Denise and Aaron followed her down a long corridor. ‘I had hoped that the records would have been put in some order.’ She opened the door marked
Archive
to reveal shelves of old ledgers.
‘Even for her day, the librarian was an old-fashioned woman, but fastidious. Once you have the reader, you can look through the reader cards and find the whole of his or her reader history. But without a name . . .’
‘Can we set ourselves up in here?’ Denise asked.
‘Sure, please do. I’m sorry it’s not any easier.’
The door closed. Denise and Aaron stared at the rows of books. Aaron pulled one out. He opened it. ‘All handwritten. There’s a lot of borrowing. We’re never going to be able to find him.’
‘We will. Let’s just try to narrow it down to some dates.’
‘How?’
‘A ten-year slot. He’s in his thirties. He might have started this as a teenager. So, let’s say he’s thirty-five. Twenty years ago he’s fifteen. About the right age, give or take a couple of years. We can go five years either side of thirty-five. So let’s start in 1990. You go five years forward, I’ll go five years back.’
‘I don’t understand your logic, Denise, but it’s a plan.’
Lock-Up, Bedford Stuyvesant
March 15, 7.35 a.m.
A
bby pulled herself up slowly and stared out. ‘We can’t sit here like victims. We’ve got to do something.’
‘No.’
‘You’ve got to help, Lucy,’ said Abby, straining with each word. ‘You know him. What makes him tick?’
‘He doesn’t like women.’
‘Or Jews. He wants me to reject my Jewishness. Why should that matter to him?’
Lucy pushed herself against the brick wall. ‘He’s Jewish, Abby.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He can’t be. That’s . . . Come on, Lucy, help me. I need something. I feel so weak. Please.’
‘He’s a cop. Did you know that?’
‘Then he’ll kill us.’ Abby felt her legs aching and she stumbled against the wall and fell to the ground. Since getting out of her tiny cell, she wanted to walk, to feel her limbs again, but she couldn’t. She didn’t have the strength. She looked up at the shower heads.
‘He’s made a gas chamber. He’s Jewish? I can’t understand it.’
‘He was adopted. His mother was Jewish, I think, and he was adopted by a Christian family. I think his mother was a prostitute, but I don’t know. I don’t know if he knows. He wanted to find her as a kid, as he was growing up, as he was feeling different, but he couldn’t trace her. He was adopted when he was five. He loved her, you know. Guess she didn’t love him back.’
‘Did they mistreat him?’
‘I guess they did. Not like you’d call social services,’ said Lucy. ‘They just weren’t kind to him.’
‘That’s it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What about his father and the shoes in the cellar?’
‘He didn’t have a cellar. I don’t think it’s his story.’
‘Then what’s his problem?’
‘He’s sensitive, I don’t think he was ever loved. I don’t think he could belong. Other kids knew he was Jewish – he was bullied and all that – but he wouldn’t talk about it. He won’t talk about anything that makes him feel weak.’
‘He hurt you?’ said Abby.
‘To some men, Abby, a woman constantly makes them feel weak. He needed me and hated it. He hated my existence. Look – I’m not a psychiatrist.’
‘He joined the cops because he wanted to exert power,’ said Abby.
‘Probably,’ said Lucy.
‘Is there anything that you can remember? Anything that might help us?’
Lucy stared blankly ahead.
Abby waited but nothing came. She walked around the walls, pushing at every brick, looking for a weak point. ‘I’m not going to die like this, Lucy. You got to fucking think.’ She looked at Lucy, who was crying. Abby stood over her. ‘Quit it!’ she rasped. ‘Just fucking quit it.’
Lucy looked up, surprised and upset.
‘I want you to
think
, Lucy. We need something to get this bastard to think twice, or to pull back. What does he want, Lucy? What does he really want?’
Lucy closed her eyes. ‘He always said he wanted to find his mom. He imagined that she’d be proud of him. A cop. A detective. Big and strong.’
‘Well, she’s not going to be proud of this fucking get-up, is she? Nazi crap. He’s like a child, playing games. I don’t know if it’s real. You look at his eyes and they’re empty.’
‘I’ll try to think of something,’ said Lucy.
Abby paused. She stared out at the Nazi flag. He had become the worst thing he could become. ‘You don’t need to think of something,’ she said. ‘I think you already did.’
Brooklyn
March 15, 9.05 a.m.
H
arper stood outside the home of Martin Heming and stared at the street. What had they missed? He had nothing from the research on the memorabilia. He walked down the rundown street, looking for a clue as to why these people formed their sick little hate groups. As he reached the subway, he got a call from the Hate Crime Unit.
‘It’s Jack here. How are you, Harper?’
‘I’m out on a limb, Jack. I guess you heard about the operation.’
‘I’m down with Heming’s body now. I heard all right. We’re hoping there’s something on him.’
‘Been there already, I got nothing. Shit, Jack, I went out without authorization last night.’
‘You got to do what you got to do.’
‘That’s okay if it works,’ said Harper. ‘But if it doesn’t?’
‘You got Heming, that’s got to weaken the killer’s position.’
‘That’s true.’
‘No right-hand man to help him out.’
‘No.’
‘Did you see the other guy? See anything at all?’
‘No,’ said Harper. ‘I got nothing.’
Carney’s voice lowered slightly. ‘Listen, Harper, don’t get all fucked up. You tried to find something on Heming. After you left, they did get something. He had a cell phone without a SIM card, right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘We found the SIM card.’
‘Where was it?’
‘In his right sock.’
‘Shit, does it tell you anything?’
‘I think we might have something here, yes.’
‘What have you got?’
‘Heming is the key to finding the killer,’ said Carney.
‘And Lucy and Abby,’ said Harper.
‘Well, Heming must’ve been with the killer, with him in his lair, right?’
‘Right.’
‘With the SIM we can see who he called. We can even get a location on the phone’s position. We can locate where he was when he made the calls.’
‘That’s fucking great, Jack. What have you got?’
‘We’ve got several locations, but the most promising is a set of garages. I’m heading over now to do a drive-by and a little surveillance. You in?’
‘We should get Blue Team and SWAT.’
‘You
are
Blue Team, Harper. We’ve got the Hate Crime Unit, so we’re not alone. But we can’t be sure he was with the killer, so let’s take a look at this before we call in the cavalry. You don’t want another botch-up, do you? And I certainly don’t.’
‘What’s the address?’
Carney gave him the street name. ‘There is no number for the garages. It’s just a row of dilapidated real estate. There’s a garage on the corner, we’re going to meet up there and see how the land lies.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Harper.
The Brooklyn Library
March 15, 9.09 a.m.
D
enise and Aaron Goldenberg sat side by side at two large oak tables. Each of them had the handwritten ledgers for a five-year period. They were flicking through at a pace, their fingers sliding down the pages. All they needed to find was the name of someone who had borrowed the book on Josef Sturbe and this could lead them to Abby, to saving Abby. It wouldn’t be conclusive, but it might give the investigation something.
Denise saw the name
Josef Sturbe
on the page. She felt herself tingle. ‘I’ve got one here,’ she called out.
‘Who is it?’ said Aaron Goldenberg.
‘Her name’s Hannah Sternberg.’
‘Age?’
‘I need to check her reading card.’ Denise crossed to the large files and searched for Hannah Sternberg. She took it out. ‘She’s about fifty-two now.’
‘Not our killer.’
‘Maybe not, but she’s interested in the Nazis – look at this record.’
Aaron pulled Hannah Sternberg’s reading record. There were several books on Nazis and the ghettos and the Holocaust.
‘She might have been trying to find something,’ said Aaron. His face contorted in pain. ‘But it’s not her, is it? We’re not going to find my Abby. Never, never, never.’
‘Don’t give up now,’ said Denise.
‘I can’t stand it. I miss her like . . . You could never understand.’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ said Denise. ‘But this is all we’ve got, so let’s keep searching.’
Aaron calmed himself. ‘Yes, for Abby. Because we must always have hope.’ He clenched each fist slowly and continued to search.
Denise’s phone rang a few minutes later. It was Tom Harper. ‘How are things in the archives?’
‘It’s okay, we’re getting through quite fast. Not many people read this book. One so far, a fifty-two-year-old woman.’
‘Keep going,’ said Harper. ‘I’ve got a lead. Set of garages on 118th in Bed-Stuy that we think Heming used when he was in hiding. It just might be the place.’
‘Be safe,’ said Denise. ‘You want help?’
‘I don’t want Aaron around if his daughter’s there. Keep in touch.’
‘Okay,’ said Denise.
‘Call me if you need me.’
‘I will,’ said Denise.
They continued to search. Aaron raised his hand in the air fifteen minutes later. ‘I found another name. A man called Albert Moile.’
‘Go check his file,’ said Denise.
Aaron looked through and found the library record card for Albert Moile. He looked across. ‘If he’s still alive, he’s ninety-five,’ said Aaron.
A moment later Denise’s finger ran down the page and stopped. She saw the name
Josef Sturbe
again and moved her finger across the ledger to the borrower’s name. She looked down at it and felt her body chill. ‘I’ve got a name,’ she said, with a tremble in her voice. ‘It’s the killer. I know who it is.’
