I KILL RICH PEOPLE 2 (46 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Madison Avenue was closed to traffic until after 11 p.m. Owen watched from inside the back seat of a squad car as K-9 units and bomb squad vans pulled away. The commanding officer of the paid unit detail remained on the sidewalk, pointing his finger at the assistant chief, commanding officer of the detective unit, and arguing with the assistant chief of patrol borough Manhattan North, whose captain of the 19th had been the first other officer on scene.

“You don’t tell me to come along,” the Paid Unit captain argued. “I take orders from the chief, the commissioner, and the mayor, not you! Don’t put this clusterfuck on my guys!

“What do you want my guys to do, ignore emergency orders coming from a gold medallion? Nobody is laying this on Paid Unit Detail. This is on you. Suspension doesn’t change anything; Cullen’s your guy! He called the fucking Level Three.”

The Assistant Chief of Detectives rode in to One Police Plaza in the front passenger seat. Owen sat like a suspect in the back seat behind the cage. The assistant chief looked out the windshield without engaging while they were driven south toward police headquarters.

Word had already come to the assistant chief that the department spokesman had 50 reporters waiting for a statement.

Seven hundred officers, five aviation units, counterterrorism, shutting down traffic to a quarter of the Upper East Side, causing the cancellation of one of the biggest charity events—what was he going to say? “Whoops?” Or just, “Sorry”?

Nobody spoke in the police garage or in the elevator, either. The hallway went silent as Owen and his top direct commanding officer emerged and walked toward the main conference center, their footfalls clacking along.

It was 11:30 at night, but the room was packed with more senior officers than Owen had ever seen in one place. The Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence was at the head of the huge table. Behind him were two aids wearing earpieces and carrying tablet computers. Owen’s bureau chief of Intelligence, the chief of the Counterterrorism Bureau, the chief of the Internal Affairs Bureau, the commanding officer of the Real Time Crime Center were seated on both sides of him. At least six other senior department officers were distributed around the table. The captain of the 19th Precinct stood mid-table on the opposite side.

“Detective Lieutenant,” the Deputy Commissioner began. He had already been there for two hours, waiting and readying himself to grind Owen to a pulp. “I’ve been around here thirty years and I still have fingers and toes left to count the Level Three alerts over my career. I didn’t see any planes hitting towers. I don’t recall any hurricane. So explain what motivated you to damage the reputation of the New York City Police Department? You just cost this city hundreds of thousands of dollars. More importantly, you scared the crap out of half this city! Plus what happens the next time there is a real emergency? How many people will ignore warnings because of what you did? People may well die because of you!”

One of the aids leaned in to whisper into the Deputy Commissioner’s ear. “Well why the hell was he on duty?” the Deputy Commissioner reacted sharply.

“He has been on unpaid medical leave,” the chief of the Intelligence Bureau responded, anticipating the question. “Detective Tremaine Bull was his partner.
Dimitri Vosilych?
”

“I know who Bull is,” the Chief barked back. “What the hell was he doing running up and down Madison Avenue with his Lieutenant’s medallion calling in a goddamned Level Three if he’s on leave?”

The Deputy Commissioner stared down the Intelligence Chief then shifted his glare toward the Captain of the 19th, who shrugged and raised both open palms; the detective had nothing to do with the 19th division.

The Commanding Officer of Detectives offered a symbolic defense, reluctantly suggesting that this was a briefing, not a disciplinary hearing. “Detective Lieutenant Cullen ought to be heard, and if he needs to defend himself, he should have ample time to get representation and to prepare.”

“There are over a hundred reporters out there and after I leave here, I’m going to be on the hook to brief the Commissioner of Police and the mayor of New York. So thank you, Assistant Chief, for the procedural niceties, but let’s get back to what the hell is going on,” the Deputy Commissioner said. “Detective Lieutenant, are you on unpaid medical leave?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“Sir?”

“Why are you on unpaid medical leave?”

“IAB interviewed the Detective Lieutenant’s immediate superior, Deputy Commissioner,” explained the Chief of Internal Affairs. “There was an altercation between the Detective Lieutenant and the new partner assigned to him. The other detective declined to file on the event, but was himself out a half-day following the altercation and was seen wearing a protective nose bridge. Detective Lieutenant Cullen was placed on paid leave for a period of four weeks and that leave was extended for an additional four weeks, unpaid.”

“So he popped his partner.”

“Sir,” the Assistant Chief of Detective interrupted. “We need to cut this off. If formal charges are proffered, none of this statement may be admissible.”

The Deputy Commissioner shouted: “I don’t need a department lawyer right now, Assistant Chief. You said your piece, now sit the fuck down!”

“Why did you do this?” he growled, spitting straight into Owen’s face when his words came out.

“There is no Dimitri Vosilych,” Owen blurted. “Jonathan Spencer killed my partner. Jonathan Spencer attacked Sands Point and Central Park West and Mamaroneck. He shot a boat out from under us on the Hudson. He was captured at Citi-Field and held in a special security prison from which he escaped almost a month ago. I was hired to locate him and kill him. Me, a CIA operative named Miller, and Stephen, Dilip, Kip and Dale, the four technology guys. We were in D.C. first, working for a man named Bishop. Then Bishop was let go because there was an attack in West Virginia that went bad. Spencer killed six commandos and brought down their helicopter. The client moved us to North Bergen. We were tracking Spencer from there. That’s how we found out about he was planning to attack the Whitney.”

“Christ!” the Deputy Commissioner griped. “And Martians are landing in Central Park!”

Everyone at the table suddenly imagined the shit storm that was about to rain down. The Deputy Commissioner motioned toward the chief of the Intelligence Bureau, and the captain from the 19th.

“Take him upstairs. You keep him the hell away from those reporters. They hear this cockamamie BS and this city will be paying out millions,” he warned.

As his chief rose and the two men approached him, Owen looked around the room, searching for someone to believe him. “Sir, I was doing my duty! I was saving those people! He’s out there! But they don’t want a celebrity trial. They don’t want to give publicity to ‘I Kill Rich People.’ You don’t understand! Jonathan Spencer is a trained killer, the best the Army had. You have to believe me! Somebody, believe me! Sir,” Owen stammered. “Sir, I can prove it. They’re right there! In Jersey. North Bergen. Right across the bridge. Sir, these guys have everything, surveillance like nothing you’ve ever seen. I just saw Donald Trump in his bathroom!”

The chief groaned. One of his aids had scanned IAB notes on Owen and leaned in close to whisper details. “Looks like depressive psychosis. Cullen could be manic. But he’s been refusing psych-counseling so no meds, no treatment.”

The chief threw his hands in the air. “Donald Trump in his bathroom,” he  griped.

“Hell. Take him over to Jersey. Chase rainbows. Just keep him the hell away from those reporters. You hear me? Keep this nutcase away from those cameras.”

*****

Spencer dragged an eight-foot section of scaffolding inside the storage container; he lowered it to the floor and then shut the metal door behind him before turning on the battery-powered lamp. He moved straight to the inside corner and lifted out the drag bag containing his Barrett. He carefully unzipped the tan canvas and hauled out the forty pounds of pure effectiveness. He took a long moment to admire it, the one sure companion that never let him down.

He hit the release, dropped the magazine, and admired the glinting reflection off the brass bullet, the 661-grain full metal jacket, before setting the full mag down and continuing the weapons-check routine. He had the Leupold scope inside a separate protective foam case that also had to be well hidden.

Spencer placed a flat sheet of cardboard on the metal floor and laid the Barrett on top of it and then folded the cardboard around the Barrett until nothing indicated it was a weapon. From the stock up past the pistol grip and all the way along the rail, he was going to have to carefully wrap every identifiable part inside the length of scaffolding.

He admired his work. The parts might plausibly be tools for floating sealant. There was no reason to think otherwise. 

In case he was searched, he wasn’t going to risk that a police officer might feel the weapon. He especially didn’t want Vince to feel it. He knew that his actions would be costing Vince his job; killing the guy was the last thing that he wanted to do.

But he didn’t have to contrive a separate event because the city was already on edge. Something that happened on the Upper East Side had the entire city put on edge. Hundreds of policemen, reporters, helicopters; all of Manhattan was on high-alert. Even the news helicopters were being forced to hover outside a square mile of restricted airspace.

Spencer felt along the weapon, adjusting his wrapping until he couldn’t have identified it himself. Next, he worked duct tape around the cardboard then wrapped the entire 57-inch length of the rifle inside clear plastic wrap and duct taped it again inside the aluminum scaffolding. Then he wrapped the rifle and scaffolding inside a brown plastic tarp, fusing everything into one conjoined piece that he could carry under one arm.

He lifted the heavy bundle and felt it for balance, then practiced stepping forward with the six-foot, fifty-five pound bundle held against his right armpit. His left hand had to be free to carry the five-gallon plastic bucket of roofing mastic with his ammunition.

He retrieved the mastic and set the bucket down, then put a tight grip on the tab and ripped away the plastic loop that kept the lid seated tightly. He caught his finger on the plastic, tearing out a nick that started bleeding. Exactly where the thorn had gotten him, he remembered. He sucked away the drip that was forming then made a fist to apply pressure. It didn’t work, so he tore away four inches of duct tape and wrapped the finger tightly until the bleeding stopped.

His plan was take the Leupold scope and the magazine and the semi-automatic pistol he was bringing, put them into Ziploc bags, and sink these into the mastic. He lifted the lid, and then placed it off to the side, being careful not to spill the sticky contents. Looking inside, he recognized the weakness in his plan and became frustrated with himself for overlooking the obvious—the contents would overflow, plus he was going to need to fish his tools back out while he was inside the tent.

He powered up a cell phone and checked the time. It was nearing 02:30. By his calculations, Spencer determined that he was going to need to unwrap his Barrett, load up, set the Leupold, tape it to the scaffolding, and then wrap everything up all over again in ten minutes or less. Having done it once, he hoped he would be faster the second time.

Two hours were left to get in some shut-eye. He had to sleep right where he was or he wouldn’t get any at all.

The steel container reminded him of the back of an army personnel carrier; it was better than listening to working girls and junkies in the basement room.

*****

“I need your medallion, Cullen,” a captain from Internal Affairs Bureau ordered.

“You think it’s a coincidence?” Owen pleaded. “You think the fire sprinklers just happened to go off in an empty space with no fire anywhere?” Owen’s fingers squeezed around the leather, holding tight to the medallion he had earned.

“Give it to him,” the captain from the 19th demanded. The whole thing disgusted him, too. Internal Affairs guys always left him feeling like he needed a long shower.

“See your rep in the a.m.,” the captain said reassuringly. “There’s more here than meets the eye. Suspended or not, you’re a police officer acting in the interests of New York City. We’ve got your back.”

“Your weapon, too,” the IAB officer demanded.

“Unless it’s department-issue, you don’t have to give him nothing,” the captain told Owen. “You are unarmed, right? Detective Lieutenant? Right?”

“Right,” Owen agreed.

IAB and the captain stared one another down. Three in the morning and the captain from the 19th wouldn’t give an inch. “You try to frisk this man and I’ll file charges on you myself,” the captain said. “I guarantee it.”

*****

His medallion was gone. No matter how many times he replayed it in his head, the weight of it leaving his hand remained unreal. He drove alone through the darkness, still hearing their anger. Suspended. Investigation pending.

Spencer is out here and they won’t listen. Nobody believes me.

They would have taken his service weapon, too. He had to lie to keep it. They nearly treated him like a suspect. They would have stood him against the wall and forced him to spread his legs for a pat down. “I’m a detective lieutenant!”

Six detectives from Intel Division, five guys and one gal, people who knew him well, had all gone out to North Bergen. Two detectives and four uniforms from North Bergen PD came along. All by itself, Intel Division was bigger than North Bergen’s entire police department, but everything was done formally; every protocol was observed. There was nothing there. Just a soggy warehouse.

Suspended. Investigation pending.

Owen drove out to Lake Success and pulled up to the curb. For a long time, he sat there staring at Mike and Shelley’s new house from the car. They were supposed to be his friends. Now they’re protecting Callie and the boys from me, he wondered?
Why? How did that ever happen?

He didn’t have a plan; he only knew that his family was inside. His family, not theirs. Shelley putting herself in the middle and Mike letting her coach Callie without saying a word. What was that about?

Owen wasn’t seeing a dark house. He wasn’t thinking about the time, four o’clock in the morning. Callie and Liam and Casey were close enough that he could reach out and have them in his arms.

A few minutes were all he was going to ask for—just a chance.

He walked along the side yard to the back door. He could see the red light on the security system. He knew their old code by heart. He figured he would take the key from under the mat, enter the code, and go in. Not bother Mike and Shelley. He wasn’t coming to see the two of them.

He checked under the mat. The key wasn’t there. He ran his fingers across the top of the doorframe. Nothing. He thought about knocking, but he tried the knob first. Locked. The security system came on when he touched the knob. The system bleeped and flashed red. A 20 appeared on the control pad, then counted 19 and down through a twenty-second delay. He looked at the glass; he could punch right through and try the code for their old house, but as the numbers descended, he froze.

It hit zero. The shrill, repeating whirl sounded like it had to be waking the entire neighborhood.