A Danger to Himself and Others: Bomb Squad NYC Incident 1 (27 page)

“Yeah,” Capobianco said, “I had a call from Inspector Brennan, too. Still, you guys did a helluva a job all around. I’m proud of you.” He leaned back in his chair. “But Brian’s right. All yesterday amounted to was a render safe on a lone device. It got us a step closer but it didn’t conclude anything.”

Diaz folded his arms across his chest.

O’Shea nodded to Kahn. “Have fun dressing up yesterday?”

“Yeah, just like Halloween but without the shaving cream. It’s a real joy wearing that thing indoors, too. Multiplies the claustrophobia about thirty times.”

“No natural light in that store,” Diaz added. “Scaffolding over the windows didn’t help either.” It had been worse for him in the basement shelter, where there were no windows at all, but Diaz chose not to mention that.

“You wanna play hero, you gotta deal with these little discomforts,” Capobianco said.

“I’m not arguing otherwise,” said Kahn. “Brian asked is all.”

O’Shea cleared his throat. “So while you guys were making the streets safe in Gotham and recovering from the trauma, I had a sit-down with our favorite still-living vagabond.”

“Go on.”

“He doesn’t know shit. Spent more time eating the dinner I put on my T and E than giving up the goods on anyone or anything. He barely even remembers the nurse, if he’s telling the truth. And I have no reason to think otherwise. He was drugged up then and he’s drugged up now.”

“The guy has PTSD,” Diaz said. “When he heard a bang outside yesterday he nearly jumped out of his skin.”

“Self-medicating.” O’Shea nodded. “So when I was done with him, I gave the nurse a call. No disrespect to your prior interview, Diaz.”

“None taken. Did you think she was nuts?”

“I didn’t experience that.”

“Maybe you gotta meet her in person.”

“I’ll look forward to that day. She came across on an even keel and, like she did with you, she admitted to an affair with all three men. Beyond that she wouldn’t cop to having a clue about who’s doing this.”

“She tell you about the battery?” Diaz asked.

“Not voluntarily, but I asked who was beating her up. She gave me the same song and dance she gave you. Fell down the stairs.”

Capobianco adjusted in his chair. “So what did you come here to tell us, Detective?”

“Just to emphasize, like I said, that despite the heat you all experienced yesterday this case is cooling off quick.”

“It’s the woman,” Kahn said. “She has to be the key to all this. Did we finally get someone up there to follow her?”

“Not clear yet,” Capobianco said. “As of this morning the Mass state troopers and the FBI were still arguing over jurisdiction. Now that the targets don’t seem to be the recruiting stations, federal interest has cooled off. Meanwhile, the crimes are all local, so Mass-a-two-shits is reluctant to act against one of its own citizens without an arrest warrant, which of course we can’t get, since we have nothing to hold her on. Par for the course.”

Kahn shook his head, equally unsurprised.

“I do think we’ll get a search warrant soon,” Capobianco added. “DA’s talking to the judge this morning. So that’s where we’re at. But I don’t trust anyone in New England to do our work for us. Who here volunteers to pound on the nurse? I’m speaking figuratively, of course.”

No one laughed. Diaz rocked to the balls of his feet. “I think I should go up there again. We were establishing some rapport, me and her.”

“Take O’Shea with you. It’s a two-man job and I don’t want Fisco on my ass for leaving A and E out of it.” Capobianco turned to O’Shea. “Deal?”

“You got it, Lieutenant.” O’Shea smiled. “Who doesn’t relish a road trip? And I’d like to see some of that rapport in action first hand.”

Still no one cracked a smile.

“I’ll call ahead and see if the Mass State Police are ready to back us up when the search warrant comes through. What about the homeless guy? We think he’s still a target?”

O’Shea shrugged. “Depends on how determined the bomber is—or whether he even knows that we intercepted his latest device. With no explosion, I imagine it won’t get prominent play in the press. Usually it only makes the front page when you guys screw up. But you never know.”

“Someone gonna protect Salinowsky?”

“He’s not cooperating on that front, but I got a tail on him anyway, a detective from the Fifth. On the bright side, the guy’s not such an easy target now that he’s alerted. Not unless the bomber decides to change his MO.”

“Worse than that, maybe the bomber will just move onto the next victim. And we’re in the dark on who that would be.”

“The nurse only admits to these three, Lieutenant. You think there’s another?”

“Seems like there’s always another, doesn’t it, guys?”

THE RIDE TO MASSACHUSETTS IN
an unmarked Crown Victoria was uneventful. O’Shea drove the whole way and they stopped twice, once to pee and again for lunch, which was fried clam sandwiches at a place that O’Shea knew in Hartford. They were in touch through Capobianco with the Massachusetts state troopers, who would meet them at the house with the warrant.

“Let’s go to the hospital first,” Diaz suggested when they closed in on Bedford. “Maybe catch her off guard.”

It pleased him very much to give O’Shea turn-by-turn directions the rest of the way—just like Kahn was always doing to him—and when they arrived at the VA hospital he instructed him on where to park, too.

At the information desk this time they asked for admission to the ward, which necessitated a stop at the administrative offices. After a few phone calls for everyone to cover their asses, the detectives were in. Wearing hospital-issue IDs on lanyards around their necks, they took the stairs and strolled down the hall to the nurses’ station. Sallye Ritchie, they learned, was not scheduled today or the next. Diaz hated the sound of that. So far as he knew, an agreement to the tail hadn’t yet come through.

“Who’s her boss?” O’Shea asked the middle-aged black woman who stood before them. She wore a name tag that said, “V. Burnes.”

“That’s me,” she said, studying O’Shea’s badge.

“Can we ask some questions?”

“Of course.” She nodded. Her head sported close-cropped, jet-black hair with dyed orange highlights. It reminded Diaz of a Cincinnati Bengals helmet. Amazing the things people found attractive.

“Is there a more private place?” O’Shea asked.

“I don’t have a separate office. We can go to the lounge.”

She led them in silence. When the door closed, she said, “What’s this about? What’s Sallye done?”

“What makes you sure she did anything, Nurse Burnes?”

She hesitated.

“Ma’am,” Diaz said, “we’re here to investigate a series of murders by bombing. I met with Nurse Ritchie last week and, to be honest, she seemed kind of odd. Nothing you say is likely to surprise us.”

Burnes blinked. “I’m sorry. I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I can’t imagine her bombing anyone.”

“What can you imagine?”

“You met with her in person last week?”

“Yeah, a few days ago.”

“Then you know what she looked like.”

“You mean the bruises. How common is that?”

“Every few months it seems, and getting worse. I’ve tried referring her for counseling but she wouldn’t hear of it. I thought, when you mentioned—well, I thought maybe she’d had enough.”

“Done violence to whoever’s beating her?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who that is?”

“It’s a little embarrassing. I’ve eavesdropped some on her. Out of concern, you understand. I’ve heard the name Warren now and then.”

“That’s a last name?”

She shook her head. “First.”

“You think he’s the boyfriend?”

“I’m sure he is.”

“She told us she fell down the subway stairs in New York.”

“Anything’s possible, I suppose. If so, she’s quite prone to accidents. A few months before it was a fender bender and she blamed the steering wheel. Before that, I think she claimed to have fallen off her bicycle.”

“Have you known her to behave inappropriately with any of the patients?”

“How do you mean?”

“Sexually.”

“Not at all. Why would you ask that?”

“Has she spoken to you at all about this man, Warren?”

“Not really. She’s a bit of a loner, doesn’t socialize much with any of us. Just does her job—quite well, I should add—and goes home.”

“Is that where we’d find her now, do you think?”

“Oh, no. She’s off to New York.”

O’Shea perked up. “New York? Wasn’t she just there? How often does she go?”

“Every month or so, usually. But she told me this time that she had to run back for something. That’s another reason…when you said…I suspected—”

“You said she kept to herself. Why’d she tell you now?”

“I require all my staff to let me know if they’re leaving town, just in case we have a national emergency. Since nine-eleven. You know, procedure.”

“Procedure,” Diaz echoed without irony.

But Burnes took it as something of an accusation. “We’re dealing with people’s lives here, Detective.”

“So are we,” said O’Shea with a polite smile. “When did she leave town?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since yesterday afternoon.”

MANIS BOUGHT THE LOCAL NEWSPAPERS
from a deli in downtown Brooklyn and leafed through them on the F Train. He never used the Internet to search for evidence of his handiwork. It left footprints that he knew he couldn’t erase.

Two of three papers contained small stories about the removal of a bomb from a homeless shelter in St. Euphrosyne Church. Neither article mentioned Lewis Salinowsky by name or that the bomb was a prosthetic leg. Both said police would not speculate on any connection to the veteran bombings. There were no casualties, which meant for sure that Salinowsky had escaped.

By the time Manis entered the apartment his blood was boiling. He walked in on Sallye watching
Glee
on television. She was sitting on the couch with her back to him, quietly singing along. He dropped the papers on the table and went over and boxed her ears. She collapsed into a defensive posture, covering her head, and he went around and punched her hard in the face. It felt good—the first time he’d ever hit her unconnected to a sexual act. He took it as a sign of his own recovery, but now he had more than that to deal with.

“Why?” she said, crying on the floor.

“Lover boy Lewis got away. What happened? You tipped him off?”

She was bleeding heavily, all over the couch as she tried to pull herself up. “Not on the furniture, bitch!” He punched her in the side of the head and she fell to the floor, crying for him to stop. It was also the first time he’d hit her when she didn’t rebound with a shit-eating grin. He liked that. She didn’t control this situation. For the first time since Germany, he thought, she wasn’t leading him around by his dick. Now he saw it all in a new light. She’d never lose her attachment to those men. And Manis, for his part, suddenly no longer felt the same attraction to her. Now he only had to take care of business.

He walked to the bathroom and returned with a bath towel, threw it at her, said, “Get up and quit your whining. Isn’t this what you always wanted, taking pain for others?” Yes, he understood. Finally, he understood everything. She was punishing herself for that first time with the man he’d once been. It settled in his mind with great clarity.

She didn’t answer him, just sat on the floor with her head tilted back over the cushions, pressing the towel into her mouth and nose.

“Tell me how long you’ve been in touch with Lewis,” he said.

She lifted the bloody towel from her face long enough to say to the ceiling, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Lewis Salinowsky? The one you always said was your best lay ever? You saved his life for another day.”

“Saved it how?”

He rushed her, fist in the air. “Don’t play stupid with me! You know what’s going on!”

She covered up but he didn’t hit her, reminding himself that he had total control now.

“You better start talking. You going to claim you didn’t know?”

“What I’ve always wanted is to be with you.”

“You got a funny way of showing it. Why’d you pay me the surprise visit last night?”

“I told you, I wanted to see you.”

“Bullshit!” He raised a fist and she cowered again. “Wanted to see what I was doing, more like.”

“No.”

“Let me get a look at the nose.”

Before she could react he closed his fingers on her jaw like a vise and lifted her head further. “Oh,” he said, “it’s broken real good this time. Smashed. You want more?”

She shook her head. “No. Please.”

“That’s better. More respectful. Tell me what you know and what you did.”

She raised herself shakily from the floor and sat on the couch, away from the bloody side. “The police came to me and told me someone had killed those others.”

“You thought it was me?”

“I suspected.”

“Turns out I’m good for something after all.”

“I always knew that you were, Lew—” She caught herself. Freudian slip.

Manis slapped her on the cheek with an open hand. It stung his palm and she looked so shocked, so broken, so divorced from her prior character that all of a sudden he wanted to cry. A picture had sprung to his mind of Sallye as a young teenager. He sank to a chair while attempting to blink it away and recapture his composure.

“What did you tell the cops?”

“I didn’t—” she began.

“Shut up! No ate-ee-ists in da fox-oles.” She didn’t reprimand him for the accent this time. He snarled at her. “What’s a matter, fox got your tongue?”

She shook her head. Blood dripped from her nose onto the floor, but most of the flow had stopped.

“So you told him,” Manis said.

“I don’t know him. He’s just, like, an idea, a distant memory that I used to turn you on. To please you, Warren.”

“You’re lying. I saw the letter.”

“I never replied to it.”

“But you carried it around. You love him. Love what you did with him, anyway. And you know what? It’s funny because he’s already ruined, a shadow of himself. If you visited him, you’d see.”