The Face of Fear: A Powers and Johnson Novel (49 page)

“If you’re on a strict, fat loss diet, you may want to forego them altogether because to burn off a bagel you would have to do thirty-one minutes of jogging, twenty-eight minutes of cycling or thirty-three minutes of basketball. Now when you compare them to muffins and donuts, which cops are famous for, they are the better choice because they limit saturated fat. Donuts in addition to calories have from two to five grams of saturated fat and two to five grams of trans fat. That’s a quarter to one half the recommended daily limit for saturated fat.”

Bud looked at Sharyn Wilkerson and said, “I’ll take coffee with a plain mini bagel.”

Lindsey nodded, “Good choice. Now since you want to lose weight, you should eliminate five hundred calories a week. But if you eliminate two hundred and fifty calories per day and exercise it is a much healthier way for you to lose weight.” Bud’s phoned buzzed as Lindsey wanted to continue.

“Saved by the phone,” he said as the other adults were amused. It was Officer Franks informing him of the website
Sightings Ghost Face
.

“It’s run by a company Red Dot Media which calls it a social photo sharing application for iPhone and iPad. It allows fans to interact with the movie fan community, get the latest news, view movie trailers and combine photos with dramatic poses of Ghost Face to create a sighting and share through Facebook.” Franks continued, “Let me fax over the features to you.” Bud asked Sharyn Wilkerson if they had a fax machine and she answered no.

Lindsey spoke up, “Have them scan it and email it to you.” Officer Franks gave it to Gina and she emailed it over to Bud within a few minutes. Bud looked at the features offered which included combining favorite photos with over twenty poses of Ghost Face. Now the question in Bud’s mind was where did Rachelle get a photo of a mountain of cash to combine Ghost Face with it? He called back Franks. Once he got him on the line, he asked him to get with Sherman and O’Connor to find out who paid for the application and to start looking where the photo came from.

“Bud,” Officer Franks replied. “Why don’t you go to the person who posted it in the first place?”

“I did that,” Bud replied, “just check this out for me.” He disconnected and sipped on his coffee as Lindsey just stared at him. “You enjoying watching me eat?” Bud asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Maybe you should go try and disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity, now that will keep you busy,” he said as he smiled at her.

“Actually,” she replied, “I have a theory I’m working on and believe that I may be able to do just that if I’m not beaten by Jacob Barnett. He has an IQ of 170 which is higher than mine and he believes he is only a few mathematical equations away from disapproving.”

“Sorry I mentioned it,” Bud replied. “Well,” he continued, “do you have the sketch you promised us today?”

“Yes,” the young girl replied, “but I’m not allowed to give it to you.” Bud put his coffee down.

“What do you mean?”

Lindsey replied, “Detective Lieutenant Cronin asked me to put the sketch in a yellow envelope, seal it and give it to Officer Healey.” Bud looked at Healey.

“Justin, you are kidding me.”

“No,” the officer replied. “He said to give it to him or Assistant

District Attorney Ashley if anything happens to him.” Bud was upset and said he felt like eating steak and eggs now.

“No,” Lindsey said. “That’s the worst time to eat, when you’re upset.” Bud put down his coffee cup and thanked Sharyn Wilkerson for the hospitality.

“OK,” he said, “I’ve got to take care of a few things before I get back here tonight.” He said his goodbyes and got in his car and drove to Mather Hospital to see Sherry before she was released during the day.

Agents Barnes and his partner, Agent Payton were getting ready to leave from their shift at 2pm when they noticed a group of people getting out of three different cars to head for the apartment building door. It was about six or seven people, men and women grouped together laughing amongst themselves as they entered the main building.

“Let’s check it out,” Barnes said to his partner Edward Payton. They walked in the building and went to Patty Saunders door and knocked.

She answered the door and smiled, “Wow, more men.”

“Is everything all right Ma’am?” Barnes said.

“Not really,” she said, “but I’m OK if that’s what you mean.”

“OK,” the agent said. “There will be someone outside, we are leaving in a couple of minutes.” She shut the door and within thirty seconds there was another knock.

“I told you I was fine,” as she opened the door. There was no one there. She put her head out to the hallway saw nothing and she began to walk back into her apartment when a figure from the hallway put a black bag over her head as she tried to scream in terror.

“Shhh,” the man said. “Quiet, before I break your neck. If I tighten this bag, you won’t have much time for air so just listen.” The man spoke in a whisper as he got close to her ear. “Who the hell do you think you are making phone calls demanding money. You have been one fuck up after another. A simple kidnapping turns into the biggest murder case in Long Island history. Oh wait, excuse me, don’t know if there will be more bodies found on Ocean Parkway at Jones Beach dumping grounds yet. You listen to me you bitch, you will go down to the Port Jefferson Jazz Club tonight and be out ’til 2am in the morning. You let them monitor you down in the Village. You make a call to Simpson around 1am and tell him you want him to come meet you about the money. Do you understand?” As he tightened the bag, Patty struggled to talk but managed to tell the man she had a curfew with her ankle monitoring of 11pm.

“Then you let them come looking for you. It will take them a couple hours to realize you have purposely broken the curfew and come get you. I would have you leave Port Jefferson Village but no, you and your fucking monitor are tying our hands behind our backs. When this is over, I may decide to leave you alive. Do this right and maybe you will have a long life in jail. Just nod yes if you understand. I know you are running out of air and shouldn’t speak. OK, now that I have your attention, be a good girl and decoy some of the police tonight and maybe I won’t tie you up and start cutting off your fingers one at a time, then your toes, then your tongue. You will die a long suffering death if you betray me, I promise you.”

“You take this bag off in ten seconds or I’ll come back and start with your first finger,” the man said. Suddenly he was gone. Patty was shaking and crying so hard it was past ten seconds before she took the bag off her head. She fell to the floor breathing hard as she was crying.

The lab technician called Detective Lieutenant Cronin direct as per his instruction and said, “You better get down here right away.” Cronin drove to the Yaphank station and met with Gary Osborne, the lab technician he had assigned to keep an eye on the Saunders apartment. “Take a look at this,” Osborne said. He played him the tape of the intruder that put the bag over Patty’s head and spoke to her while she was shaking.

“What are we going to do with this?” Osborne asked.

“Nothing,” Cronin answered. “We are going to let this game play out.”

“Wait,” Osborne said. “We have to inform the FBI, Assistant District Attorney and,” Cronin interrupted him.

“We tell no one. It’s not admissible anyway. I just changed the rules today.”

“Sir,” Osborne said. “Are you telling me the surveillance camera was installed illegally?”

“No,” Cronin answered, “I’m not telling you anything. Just do your job, I’ll take the responsibility.” Osborne looked at the piece of film and kept turning his head to Cronin then back at the film.

“Shit,” he said to himself as Cronin left. As Cronin got in his car, he sent Bud a text.

“Your visit today was successful.” Bud received the text and knew immediately what it meant. Cronin could not be specific in a text but he had asked Bud to install a small wireless surveillance camera on top of the doorway in Patty’s apartment when he was there. It was not easy figuring out the different frequency that was needed to insure what happened in the apartment was captured. Patty had an ankle monitor, a computer and television but with the help of Gary Osborne they figured it out. His BlackBerry buzzed again, it was another alert from Rachelle, for the second time in a row it was a so called “Sighting” of Ghost Face, this time the image was superimposed next to a bank safe that was open and had no money in it. The caption read, “It’s too LATE...It was your FATE. Soon you will SEE... that it’s all for ME.”

“What the shit is she doing?” Bud said aloud to himself. He sent Paul a text. “Where the hell are you?”

He called the precinct asking if Paul was there since they left. He was connected to Gina who told him he had not been back. He drove to Z Pita, knocked on the back door and went up the stairs to find Paul was not around. He walked around the front, entered into the restaurant to sit down for a cup of coffee and was greeted by Rosie.

“How are you doing, honey? What can I get for you now?”

“A cup of joe, err, I mean coffee and Joey Z.”

“All righty now,” the smiling server replied. Joey Z walked over to Bud and sat down. Bud started talking right away.

“Have you seen Paul?”

“No, not since breakfast this morning,” the owner replied.

“If you see him, you tell him he better call me like yesterday.” Rosie brought over his coffee.

“Here you go, honey,” and walked away. Bud looked back at her, “I can’t believe she is still here, she seems nuts.” Joey Z laughed. “That’s what they say about you, my friend, besides, it was difficult getting used to her personality but now we have parties of six, eight, ten or more that specifically request her. She’s like a breath of fresh air.”

Bud shook his head, “I guess you can’t always go by first impressions.”

“No, my friend,” Joey Z replied, “you most certainly cannot. What do you think of the new wall décor and paint colors of the place?” Bud looked around and didn’t want to say he had not noticed but he said it was very nice. Joey Z continued, “Rosie and Tina did not like the mirrors at first without drapes but they came around.” Bud was getting anxious to leave. He loved Joey Z but he had a murder on his mind as well as the whereabouts of Paul.

“OK,” Bud replied as he got up. “It will be a late night tonight. I better get some rest.” He wrote a note to Paul and gave it to Joey Z to give to Paul. He suspected he would come in for something to eat before he went upstairs to get some sleep before the shift tonight. Bud got in his car and drove to the precinct to speak with Detective Lieutenant Cronin about the footage before heading back to his place. He arrived at 4pm and as he headed to the Detective Lieutenant’s office, Gina stopped him to tell him he was taking a sixty minute nap. The curtains were drawn and his phone was directed to ring at Gina’s desk. Bud looked at his watch and asked how much longer would it be before his nap reached sixty minutes.

“Another thirty minutes,” she answered. “Please wait.” Bud was chomping at the bit. He needed to talk to Cronin about what was captured on film in Patty’s apartment. He was praying it was someone he didn’t know. When 4:30pm arrived, Gina woke up the boss and Bud walked in and shut the door. Paul walked in to the precinct and was told that Bud and Cronin were in his office.

“OK,” he replied, he walked over to Gina and told her to tell Bud to pick him up at his apartment at midnight if he wanted to go to the Wilkerson house together.

Bud walked out of Cronin’s office about ten minutes later and was told by Gina that Paul was there, left, and gave him the message about the pickup. He went back into Cronin’s office and spoke, “If this asshole can get inside Patty’s apartment with the FBI watching her from the outside, how the hell is she going to be protected when she goes to Port Jazz tonight?”

“I know,” Cronin spoke. “However, she got herself into this mess and she agreed to the deal. She has already flushed out one of them and we have him on film. We will put Chapman on detail at Port Jazz tonight just to see what goes down if anything.” Bud nodded.

“See ya later boss.” He tried to leave but held himself back. He turned around and looked at the man he had admired so much these past few years. “Are you sorry boss?”

“About what?” Cronin replied.

“The decisions you made,” Bud answered. “The statement made to
Long Island Pulse
?”

“No,” the Detective Lieutenant replied. “I’ve been doing this a long time and I won’t regret my decisions. I believe that to protect my team and to end the game, I had to be personally involved in this one.” Bud nodded.

“See you later.”

“OK, Bud, get some rest,” the boss replied. Bud drove back to his apartment and texted, “I miss you,” to Deborah. He wasn’t sure why he did. He really didn’t know her that well, but the short time they had together, he felt there was a connection not to mention a chemical reaction on his part. He wanted to be a better person every time he thought about her. He wanted to be a better cop when he was around her. He laughed to himself when he thought how happy he was she didn’t have the memory of a Lindsey. He was going to call the Wilkerson house when he received a text from Deborah that said, “Thank you for telling me that.”

He wrote back and said, “You’re welcome” and felt a little foolish for expressing himself that way until about two minutes later, he received a text from her saying, “I miss you as well.” They began to exchange texts until Bud realized it was almost 7pm before telling her he had to get some sleep for the shift tonight. Before he went to bed he wrote a note to Deborah to her in case something happened to him. Cronin felt strongly something was going to happen Thursday or Friday night, due to his statement. He thought they have all felt strongly about things in the past that never happened but the intense scrutiny of the case was forcing the hand of those who were after the cash. Bud sat on his bed with his thoughts spinning. “Who are you working with Phil Smith? It’s true the camera adds ten pounds to you.”

William Lance called Robert Simpson at the mansion to tell him they would be coming home Sunday and to please be out by Saturday to avoid awkward moments with Deborah. Simpson acknowledged he would be out but told his former employer he was not giving up on Debbie. William Lance replied that would be up to his daughter to decide that. He hung up the phone and within thirty seconds Simpson called the number and the person they referred to as the voice answered.