Bad to the Bone (33 page)

Moodrow began to unfold a Hagstrom street map of eastern Long Island. “You remember what Betty said about ‘Miss Liberty’?”

“Yeah, I was kind of surprised that she’d snap at you like that.”

“About a year ago, Betty and I took the ferry out to Liberty Island. Neither of us had ever been to the Statue of Liberty before, even though both of us have lived here all our lives, and we figured it was about time. Maybe I’m too much of a cynic, but I wasn’t very moved by the ‘Give me your poor and huddled masses’ bit. I’ve seen too many ‘poor and huddled masses’ on the streets of New York to buy the dream. But Betty was really excited by the statue. Her family had come here to escape old Adolf and it’d worked out for them. We walked around for a couple of hours, then headed back for the ferry, which happened to be broken down. It was tied up to the dock, but they wouldn’t let us on. We argued about it with the crew until it started raining. It had been hot as hell all day and the thunderstorms rolled in around five o’clock. There was lightning and thunder, and we were on an island in the middle of New York Harbor. I think that’s what Betty was referring to when she mentioned ‘Miss Liberty.’ ”

“You think she was talking about the ferry?”

“Betty went into Hanover House about eight o’clock. It’s eleven-thirty, now. Betty called at eleven. Figure two hours, maybe two and a half hours driving. That would put them on the eastern end of Long Island, if they went that way. There’s a bunch of smaller islands out there and they connect to the mainland with ferries.”

Moodrow finished spreading the map out and both men leaned over it, searching. Long Island, which includes the New York City boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn on its western end, extends one hundred miles due east into the Atlantic Ocean. Forty miles from its eastern tip, it splits into two branches, the North and South Forks. Orient Point marks the end of the North Fork while Montauk Point, with its famous lighthouse, marks the end of the South Fork. Three islands lie between the Forks while a fourth, Plum Island, sits out in the Atlantic just off the tip of the North Fork. Of these, two, Shelter Island and Plum Island, are served by public ferries, while the other two, Gardiners Island and Robins Island, are privately owned. There are several other Long Island ferries, but the ferries from the north connect Long Island to Connecticut and take more than a hour to complete their runs, while the ferries from the south, connecting mainland Long Island to Fire Island, carry passengers only. Cars are banned on Fire Island.

Jim Tilley found the third possibility. “How do you know they didn’t go up through Connecticut? There’s an island right off New London. Fishers Island. How far is it from New York to New London?” He studied the map intently, trying to decipher the mileage chart. “A hundred and twenty-six road miles. Almost exactly the same as the length of Long Island. They could’ve gone to Fishers Island.”

“All right, three possibilities. It doesn’t matter much anyway, because we’re not gonna find him by driving around. What we need is access to the paper. Bank records and like that. Maybe he made phone calls from the commune to the lab. Or maybe he’s paying a mortgage.”

Tilley leaned forward. “I guess that brings us to the big question.”

“Which is?”

“Which is what you’re gonna do. You need warrants to get that information. Warrants signed by a judge. Kidnapping is a federal crime, and I don’t see how you’re gonna get your warrants without calling in the FBI.”

Moodrow turned back to the map without answering. What Tilley had taken for calm was actually a kind of numbness. Moodrow was well aware of the paralysis that often accompanies intense worry. Worry leads to indecision, to second-guessing. The individual knows that the wrong decision will result in the death of the victim. Better to make no decision at all than to accept that grim responsibility.

Not that Moodrow had chosen his present state. He felt like he was in a dream, like he was about to open that dark closet and confront something completely unknown. He controlled his fear by backing off, by planning, by analyzing.

Craddock, Moodrow knew, had been right. There were only three possibilities: do nothing, give it to the FBI, go it alone. He could follow the chain of events flowing from each possibility. Right up to the last link. Betty’s life was suspended at the end of the chain.

“What do you think Craddock will do if I sit back and wait?” he asked finally. “You think he’ll let her go?”

Tilley didn’t answer immediately. He tried to imagine Craddock opening a door somewhere and Betty walking through it, unharmed. It was the least likely of all the possibilities. “We’ve got to assume that Craddock has some escape plan. Even if you decide to wait it out, you won’t wait forever. The only real escape for him is to get out of the country. Maybe South America. Someplace without an extradition treaty. Which means that he
could
release her.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“C’mon, Stanley. I don’t have a crystal ball.”

“Then guess, Jim. Guess.”

Tilley sighed. “The guy’s ego is more important to him than the money. Success isn’t enough. He wants to humiliate you. I think the least he’ll do is hurt her. It could be worse.”

“What happens if I turn it over to the FBI?”

“Then you’d be out of it. You’re just an ordinary citizen to them. They’d have you sitting by the phone in case he calls. But the FBI would find him, Stanley. They’d get all the warrants they need. There’s no way he could’ve set up that lab without leaving a paper trail.”

“Yeah, they’d find him. But could they take him before he got to Betty? Like you said, Craddock’s whole game is his ego. If the FBI surrounded the house or tried to smash through the door, would Craddock surrender? He had armed guards at Hanover House, and we’d be very stupid to assume he didn’t have his lab protected. I think I should find him before I do anything. I already called Leonora. She’ll be here soon.”

They went back to the map and the three islands. Two, Fishers and Plum were quite small, but Shelter Island, served by ferries from the North and South Forks, was large enough to be a popular summer resort area as well as support a year-round population of several thousand. Tilley had been on Shelter Island and he remembered it as a place of wealth, of enormous mansions looking out over Gardiners Bay. Assuming Betty had been right about the ferry ride, Shelter Island was the obvious place to look. Not that it meant very much—without enlisting the aid of the local police, they’d be as helpless on Shelter Island as they were on the Lower East Side.

Leonora Higgins arrived half an hour later. It was almost midnight and she wore no makeup. In sharp contrast to her usual business attire, she was dressed in jeans, a simple white blouse and a dark blue sweater. She, like Tilley, expected to find an enraged, unpredictable Moodrow. And, like Tilley, she was relieved by his outward calm. She accepted a mug of coffee, then listened carefully to the details of Craddock’s phone call.

“Poor Betty,” she said. Then, after a pause: “I hope you kill this bastard, Stanley. This bastard should not be walking around, even in a prison.”

“Killing him is the easy part, Leonora. The problem is what he’ll do before I get to him.”

Higgins banged her fist on the table. “The one thing you can’t do is wait around. Because if you wait, he’ll…” She didn’t finish the sentence. “Why did you let her go in there? What were you thinking?”

Moodrow almost smiled.
He
was the one who was supposed to be furious. “I begged her not to go, but I couldn’t get through to her. She accused me of pushing her around. ‘Typical male arrogance’ was the way she put it.”

“She should’ve known,” Leonora admitted. “Twenty years in law enforcement. She should’ve known.”

Moodrow surprised himself by defending Betty. “She was worried about the kid, Michael Alamare. Which was reasonable under the circumstances.”

“Well, she’s really helping the kid now.”

“Leonora,” Tilley broke in, “this isn’t doing us any good. Why don’t we save the guilt trip for later.”

Higgins looked around the room, then sighed. “You’re right,” she admitted. “Let’s get to work. Stanley, how many people do you think Craddock has in that lab?”

“Four or five sentries. A dozen workers in the lab. Two dozen. There’s no way to know.”

“How do you know he doesn’t have an armed man in the room with Betty all the time?”

“I don’t know, Leonora. There’s no way I could know.”

“Well, I don’t see how you can get in there.”

Moodrow spun his mug slowly on the table. He was manipulating a friend and he knew it. “What do you think would happen if the FBI showed up with an army of agents and local police?”

“There’d be no chance,” Higgins admitted. “They’d never get inside before Craddock got to Betty.”

“How could I do any better alone?”

“Stanley,” Tilley said quietly, “are you saying it’s impossible, that you can’t do anything?”

“What I’m saying is that unless something unexpected happens, a direct frontal assault is not gonna get her out. But I got something else in mind. What if I set up surveillance on the lab? What if I wait for Craddock to come out, then take him? With a little encouragement, I think he’ll let Betty go. Like if I offer to trade his cock for Betty’s freedom. He lets her go, he keeps it. He doesn’t let her go, I feed it into a meat grinder. A millimeter at a time.”

“That would probably work,” Higgins admitted. “But how do you intend to locate the lab?”

“The paper, Leonora. Phone records, bank records. Figure it like this. There are no apartments out there. Homes on the eastern tip of Long Island are more expensive than in the city. He didn’t get that kind of money out of his own pocket. He took it from the commune and he left a trail.”

“You need warrants to get that information,” Tilley insisted. “And a judge has to sign the warrants. It’s not like filling out a form.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, Higgins couldn’t hold back a smile. “I suppose that’s
my
job. Getting the warrants.”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Moodrow said quietly.

“Don’t bullshit me, Stanley. I’m a prosecutor, remember? I can smell bullshit at fifty paces.”

“Look, Leonora…”

“Let me see if I’ve got it right. You need search warrants to get at Craddock’s paper, but you don’t want to report the crime. In order to get the warrant, I have to go before a judge with an affidavit signed by a detective. How does it begin? ‘In the interests of justice’? The officer has to swear that his sources are known to him and reliable. He has to establish probable cause. Usually, the detective goes into court with the assistant DA in case the judge has questions. Is that where you come in, Jim?”

“Whatever it takes,” Tilley answered evenly.

“Then you know the consequences if we’re caught?”

“Whatever it takes,” he repeated.

“First, we’d both be fired. Then I’d be disbarred. Then we’d be charged with filing false documents, which is a felony. To put it bluntly, our professional lives would be over.”

“The idea is not to get caught,” Moodrow said. For the first time, he was afraid and the fear showed in his eyes. “There’s no reason why you
should
be caught. Some of those judges will sign a recipe for chicken soup. As long as we don’t try to use the warrants in a courtroom, nobody will know.”

“Unless there’s a spectacular bust later on. You can take Craddock’s body and dump it in the ocean, but you can’t get rid of the lab and all the dope he’s manufacturing. The papers will eat it up.
GURU TURNS MAD SCIENTIST.
The judge might remember. Even the easy ones read what they sign, because they don’t want their warrants knocked down at trial. It makes them look stupid in the eyes of their colleagues.”

“Are you saying you won’t do it?”

“Fortunately, I don’t have to make a decision, because there’s a better way. A safer way. I can go into court and open a Grand Jury investigation into Craddock’s activities. There’s no paperwork involved. All I do is add it to the calendar where it’ll sit for weeks before any action is taken. I don’t need written approval from my superiors or sworn affidavits. Once the Grand Jury begins an investigation, I have the right to subpoena Craddock’s phone and bank records. The subpoena forms are in my desk drawer. New York Telephone and most of the larger banks have departments to expedite subpoenas. After I get and copy the records, I can go back into court and withdraw the investigation. There’s almost no chance of getting caught, but even if the subpoenas were uncovered, my actions would be unethical, but not illegal. As an assistant district attorney, I have the right to open an investigation and, of course, a crime
has
been committed.”

“How long will it take you to do all this?” Moodrow felt no guilt, only relief.

“Half an hour. Grand Jury investigations are routinely opened and routinely withdrawn. Getting the Grand Jury to
act
is a much more difficult proposition, but, of course, we’re not looking for action. There are some problems, though.”

“Like?”

“Like what do I subpoena? How many foundations did Craddock set up to feed Hanover House? Didn’t he have some kind of business? Before I go to the bank and the phone company, I have to know what records I want to see. I don’t even know what bank, or banks, he used.”

“I already thought of that,” Moodrow grunted. “The state investigated Craddock last year. The attorney general’s office. If you could get a look at the paperwork, it’d most likely all be there.”

“You’re always thinking, Stanley.”

“Please, Leonora. You know what’s at stake here.”

“All right, Stanley.” She reached out and took his hand. “Betty is my friend, too. We’ll get the information you want. It’s Friday night.” She looked at her watch. “No, make that Saturday morning. I’ll go over to the attorney general’s office as soon as it opens on Monday. If the information you want is there, I’ll open up a Grand Jury investigation Monday afternoon. By Tuesday afternoon, I’ll have the records you want.”

It was almost two
AM
by the time they finished hammering it out. The delay, from Saturday to Tuesday, would work in their favor. Hopefully, with Moodrow sitting on his hands, Craddock would relax. The less pressure, the better. If Craddock felt safe, he might gather up the courage to leave his fortress.