Worst Case Read online

  “Sure,” I said, exchanging uncertain glances with Detectives Ramirez and Schultz, the other members of my team. We had everything ready to go. Now the Feds were here? What did that mean?

  We exchanged much happier looks as a tall, auburn-haired woman came through the door two minutes later. Good-looking women, even ones who were turf-invading FBI agents, were always a pleasant surprise.

  She spoke to Donald Dunning and his wife briefly in the foyer before stepping into the study.

  “Emily Parker,” she said, offering her hand. She had a slight southern or maybe midwestern accent. “Mike Bennett, is it? I can see by your surprise that no one told you I was coming. Of course not. My boss is calling your boss or something.

  “I know you guys are as good as we are. I’m not here in any way to take the case away from you. Just here to coordinate resources you guys might not have, get you on the front of the line for databases and such. This is odd, I know, to come all the way up from Washington and—”

  “Wait, what?” I said. “From Washington? Why didn’t they just send someone from Twenty-six Fed?”

  “Because I wanted the best,” Donald Dunning said, coming in behind her. “You solved two. That’s what Freddy told me. You got two kidnapped kids back safely.”

  “It was actually three, but yes.”

  Okay, now I saw where this was going. Dunning was flexing his considerable muscle, using his juice to pull out all the stops.

  He obviously didn’t realize the strange kind of animal that an investigation in New York City is. I’m sure Homecoming Queen Emily Parker kicked ass out in those big square states where they didn’t have things like subways and Brooklyn and eight million people. The NYPD, despite its gruff demeanor, Bugs Bunny accent, and lack of executive hair, was the investigative equal of any law enforcement agency, especially when in its own backyard.

  But I knew if I made some kind of jurisdictional stink, the Feds could invoke the Federal Kidnapping Statute and actually take over the case.

  Instead of ranting and raving, I stood there politely holding my tongue and keeping a stiff smile.

  Chapter 7

  “MR. DUNNING, I’D like to speak to you and your wife further in a moment,” Agent Parker said. Her demeanor was the perfect mix of directness and caring. “I just need to go over a few things with Detective Bennett first. Will you be in the kitchen?”

  “Oh, of course,” Dunning mumbled before leaving the study.

  That was about as polite a “get lost” as I’d ever seen. I was impressed. Maybe Agent Parker had some chops after all.

  She closed the French doors tightly behind him.

  “Did you check out the Dunnings for any domestic violence complaints or criminal records?” she said.

  I saw where she was going. It had to be verified from the start that it was, in fact, a stranger kidnapping and not a cover-up for a murder or something else. Step one was ruling out the family. I was way ahead of her.

  “Both clean,” I said, nodding. “We’re still checking out the staff. How did the Dunnings’ demeanor seem to you? About right?”

  “The mom seems to be in a dissociative fugue, and the father looks like he’s just chugged a quart of battery acid,” Parker said with a shrug. “In this case, both typical responses. You want me to toss their name at the White Collar Squad just in case? Can’t hurt to check out any recent debt or insurance activity. We could even look up psychiatric history, if any.”

  Wow, I thought. Talk about trusting no one and nothing. I liked that in a cop.

  “Do it,” I said.

  She took a pad from her briefcase and scribbled on it.

  “Any witnesses to the abduction?” Parker said.

  “None,” I said. “A girl in one of his classes has Jacob leaving some shithole in Alphabet City at one o’clock in the morning Saturday.”

  “Alphabet City?” Parker said.

  “A neighborhood near his school,” Detective Schultz piped in.

  “A skanky one,” added Ramirez.

  “Go on,” she said with a nod.

  “We’re thinking he was grabbed right then because by the look of things, Jacob never made it back to his dorm room,” I said. “We already interviewed his roommate and tossed the building. Nothing. If he went on a trip, he forgot to tell everyone he knows.”

  I handed her the rough copy of the victimology report I’d already done, along with a current photograph.

  “This report is excellent,” Parker said, turning the pages with an impressed nod. “Physical characteristics, behavior personality, and family dynamics. This NYPD thing doesn’t work out, we could use you down in Quantico. Tell me about the contact with the kidnapper.”

  I went to the desk and pressed Play on the answering machine. Special Agent Parker squinted with surprise as the strange question-and-answer recording echoed through the room.

  I clicked it off when it was over.

  “Parents confirmed the person being questioned is Jacob,” I said. “Have you ever heard anything like that before?”

  Parker shook her head.

  “Not even close,” she said. “Sounded like an odd game show or something. Have you?”

  I let out a frustrated breath.

  “Sort of,” I said. “About a year ago, there was this guy who called himself the Teacher. Like this guy, he would blather on about our unjust society. Right before he blew holes in people.”

  “Of course. The spree killer. The plane that crashed in New York Harbor, right? I read about that,” Parker said.

  I nodded.

  “Wait! The cop in the plane! Bennett, my God, that was you?”

  I nodded again as she took that in.

  “So, you think this is some sort of copycat?” Parker said.

  I took a breath, remembering how hard I’d knocked on death’s door.

  “For this family’s sake,” I said, shaking the last drop of coffee from my cup, “I hope not.”

  Chapter 8

  EVERY TWO MINUTES or so, Armando came in to refill our china cups from a polished silver coffee urn. I’d told him twice that he didn’t need to go to all the trouble, but he’d turned a deaf ear to us. He seemed as concerned about Jacob as his parents were.

  The whirring sound of a mixer started in the kitchen. From the study, I saw Jacob’s mother, tears pouring down her cheeks, her hair mussed, her evening gown covered in flour, open the fridge and go back to the island, carrying eggs.

  Armando made the sign of the cross.

  “Poor Mrs. D, always she bake when she is upset,” he said in a whisper.

  I’d shown Jacob’s room to Agent Parker and had just started going over potential media strategies when Detective Schultz called me over to the study’s window. Outside the Dakota’s main entrance, a black Chevy Suburban with tinted windows had its blue police light flashing on its dashboard.

  I immediately called down to the ESU guys doing surveillance on the street.

  “What the hell is going on down there?” I said. “Kill those lights. Who is that jackass? This is supposed to be an undercover operation.”

  “Someone from the mayor’s office,” an ESU sergeant stationed in the lobby said. “She’s on her way up.”

  A minute later, a sharp-featured fifty-something woman with a salon-perfected blond bob came through the apartment’s front door.

  “April! I came straight here when I heard the news,” she said.

  Mrs. Dunning seemed taken aback as she was engulfed in the tall woman’s viselike embrace. So did Mr. Dunning when he was given the same treatment.

  “Christ, this is all we need,” I mumbled.

  It was the first deputy mayor, Georgina Hottinger. Before being promoted to the mayor’s second in line, she’d been in charge of the New York Improvement Fund, which roped wealthy individuals into paying for city events. Which would have been useful had this been a charity function instead of a kidnapping investigation.

  “Who’s in charge here?” she commande
d as she burst into the study. I guess she was through with the air- and ass-kissing.

  “I am. Mike Bennett. Major Case Squad,” I said.

  “Every development in this case is to be sent immediately to my office. And I mean every one. The Dunnings will be shown every imaginable courtesy in their time of need, first and foremost being their privacy.”

  Staring into her ice-pick blue eyes, I suddenly remembered the nickname the City Hall press corps had given Hottinger. Still resembling the ballerina in the San Francisco ballet that she’d once been, the take-no-prisoners politico was called the “Barbed-Wire Swan.”

  “This woman is a personal friend of mine, Detective,” Hottinger continued. “So I hope we’re clear on how this thing is to be run. I’ll be holding you personally responsible for any fuckups. Why are we running this, by the way? Are we even capable? I thought kidnappings were a federal offense. Has the FBI been informed?”

  “Yes, they have, actually,” Emily Parker said, glaring at her. “I’m Special Agent Parker. And you are?”

  Georgina whirled around, looking like she wanted to give Emily a roundhouse pirouette to the jaw.

  “Me?” Hottinger said. “Oh, no one, really. I just happen to be the one who’s in charge of the capital of the world until the mayor comes back on Tuesday. You have any other stupid questions, Agent?”

  “Just one,” Emily said, nonplussed. “Did it occur to you when you pulled up with your lights flashing that the person responsible for abducting Jacob could now be watching this building? They demanded that no police be contacted. Now it looks like you’ve blown that. I believe you were saying something about fuckups?”

  I got between the two ladies before the fur started flying. And they say men can’t get along. I decided I was starting to like Parker a little.

  “I’ll be in contact with your office, Deputy Mayor. As soon as I hear anything, so will you,” I said, guiding her out into the hall. “We’re still waiting for the perpetrator to call back, so if you’ll let us get back to work.”

  Parker was blowing out a flushed breath as the apartment’s front door slammed behind Hottinger.

  “This political personal-service crap pisses me off to no end, Mike,” Parker said. “First the attorney general, now the mayor’s office is involved? I actually got here on Dunning’s jet, did I tell you that? Do you think for a minute that there’d be this much effort if some poor nobody kid was abducted?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “But think about it. If your kid were in danger, wouldn’t you pull every string you had?”

  In the kitchen, Mrs. Dunning slammed a muffin tin hard enough to shake the glass in the French doors.

  “You’re right. I would,” Parker said with a nod. “Can we at least both agree that the deputy mayor is one rabid bitch?”

  “Now, on that one,” I said with a laugh, “I’m with you one hundred percent.”

  Chapter 9

  AT 3:55, DONALD Dunning sat down at the Chippendale desk in the study. On it were chess sets chiseled in marble, leather-bound books, antique tin soldiers, a seashell inlaid with gold. But his eyes, along with everyone else’s, were locked squarely on the phone.

  It rang at the stroke of four. It was a different number from the first call, a 718 area code this time.

  Dunning wiped his sweating hands on his slacks before he lifted the receiver.

  “This is Donald Dunning. Please tell me what I have to do to get my son back. I’ll do whatever you want,” he said.

  “You mean except for calling the police when I told you not to?” the calm voice from the first call said. “Put them on the line. I know they’re there. Try to fool me again, and I’ll FedEx you a piece of Jacob in a biohazard bag.”

  Dunning’s face went a shade of white I’d never seen before. His lips moved silently. I nodded to him that it was okay as I took the phone from his shaking hand.

  “This is Mike Bennett. I’m a detective with the NYPD,” I said. “How’s Jacob? Is he okay?”

  “We’ll discuss Jacob in due time, Mike,” the kidnapper said. “Did you hear that officious blowhard? His son’s life lies naked in my bare hands, and he thinks he can still give orders?”

  “I think Mr. Dunning is just upset because he misses his son,” I said as I took out my notepad. “You’re obviously holding all the cards. All we want to know is how we can get Jacob back.”

  “Funny you say that,” the kidnapper said. “About holding all the cards. I wish I really were, instead of absolute assholes like Dunning. Then this kind of thing wouldn’t be necessary.”

  Former employee? I wrote on the pad. Disgruntled? Personal vendetta?

  There was a pause, and then a strange sound started. At first I thought that I heard laughing, but after a second I realized the kidnapper was sobbing uncontrollably.

  I don’t know what I had been expecting, but it definitely wasn’t tears.

  Unstable, I scribbled on the pad.

  “What is it?” I said after a little while. “What’s making you so upset?”

  “This world,” the kidnapper said in a choked-up whisper. “How messed up it is. The greed and rampant injustice. There is so much we could do, but we just sit by and let it all go down the drain. Dunning could save twenty lives with what he pays for his shoes. Latvium stock rises on the corpses of the world’s poor.”

  “Don’t they also create drugs that save lives?” I said. Rule number one in negotiating is to keep the person talking. “I thought a lot of big drug companies actually give drugs away to Third World countries.”

  “That’s just bullshit for the multimillion-dollar marketing campaign,” the kidnapper said wearily. “The donated drugs are crap. Often expired. Sometimes deadly. In reality, the most common way Latvium interacts with Third World citizens is when it uses them as guinea pigs. The cherry on top is the way it launders its profits through offshore banks, using copyright laws and shell companies to avoid paying American taxes. Look it up, Mike. It’s common knowledge. Congress looks the other way. I wonder why. Can you say lobbyists? Can you say institutional corruption?”

  The kidnapper sighed.

  “Are you that dense? Latvium is a multinational company. The sole purpose of multinational corporations in every industry is the production of fabulous wealth for its upper management. National responsibility and human lives are asides to men like him. Always have been. Always will be.”

  He did have something of a point, I thought. He was actually kind of persuasive. His voice sounded cultured, like an academic’s. Intelligent, I wrote on my pad.

  “But the wind is blowing in a different direction now,” he continued. “The hand of destiny knocks upon the door. That’s why I’m doing this. To wake people up. To make them rethink the way in which they conduct themselves. Because these wings are no longer wings to fly but merely vans to beat the air. The air which is now thoroughly small and dry. Smaller and dryer than the will. Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.”

  God, now he was talking gibberish. I underlined Unstable. Beside it, I wrote, Drugs? Schizoid? Psychotic? Hearing voices?

  “Now getting back to Jacob,” I said. “Could we speak to him?”

  He let out a deep breath. Then he gave me by far the largest shock of our conversation.

  “I’ll do better than that. You can have him back, Mike,” he said.

  I stood holding the receiver, stunned.

  “You’ll have to come for him, though,” the voice continued. “Give me your cell phone number. Get in a car. I’ll call you in ten minutes.”

  He hung up after I gave him my number.

  “It’s over?” Dunning said happily, with surprise. “He’s going to give him back? I guess he changed his mind, is that it? He must have realized how crazy this was. April! Honey! Jacob’s coming home!”

  I watched Dunning run out of the room. He was grasping at any hope now.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t as optimistic. The individual who’d taken Jacob seemed h
ighly organized. He wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to just give him back.

  What was filling me with even more dread was the way he kept changing the subject when I asked about Jacob.

  I could tell by the skeptical look on Parker’s face that she was thinking exactly the same thing.

  Chapter 10

  AN UNMARKED BLACK Impala was gassed and waiting in the cold rain around the corner on Central Park West. In the front seat, I handed Parker one of the Kevlar vests draped across the dashboard and slipped into the other.

  We would be the lead car, with Schultz and Ramirez loosely tailing us. Aviation had been called, and a Bell 206 was en route from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn for high-altitude covert surveillance.

  “What was that about the wings?” I said to Parker as we sat there waiting for the kidnapper to call back.

  “I think it was a poem. It’s on the tip of my tongue. My college English professor would kill me.”

  “Where’d you go to school?” I said.

  “UVA.”

  “Virginia. So that explains the down-home accent.”

  “Accent?” Emily drawled. “Y’all Yankees are the ones with the accent.”

  An FBI agent with a sense of humor, I thought, listening to the drumroll of rain on the roof. What were the odds?

  I put my phone on speaker and was adjusting the no-hands microphone when it rang. It was yet a different number, I noticed, a Long Island 516 area code, the third number so far. Maybe our kidnapper owned a cell phone store, I thought as I folded it open.

  “Listen to my instructions. Go exactly where I say,” the kidnapper told me. “Take the Central Park traverse to the East Side.”

  I took a breath as we pulled out. It started to rain harder. Against the gray sky, the bare trees atop the park’s stone walls looked black in the rain.

  A few minutes later, I said, “I’m coming up on Fifth Avenue now.”

  “Keep going to Park Avenue and make an uptown left.”