East 126th Street
November 29, 9.40 p.m.
Harper and Denise arrived at East 126th Street and parked up. They saw Marconi’s truck sitting on the side of the street. High up in the building, one of the boarded windows glimmered with light.
‘He’s in. We’ll wait for the other guys.’
On the way over, Harper had called up Eddie. Kasper had, in turn, called in the Feds working the task force. They might need to have people with Federal jurisdiction. They were all heading over. This had to end tonight. There was no time for convincing Lafayette, no time for the deputy DA and no time for any warrant. They had to take Redtop out and try to save Lucy James.
In the apartment building, Sebastian was dressed in one of Mo’s shirts. He’d rolled the dead girl in a sheet and already put her in the back of Marconi’s truck along with two canisters of gasoline. Mo knew what to do. Mo should’ve left already but he couldn’t stop crying. He’d loved Lucy and now Nick had taken her away. He was crying so much that Sebastian was afraid he’d draw attention to himself. It took him nearly half an hour to calm Mo down. In the end, Sebastian promised him another girl. Promised him a keeper if he did a good job getting rid of Lucy. Mo packed a small bag and left the apartment, for the farm he knew from a long time ago.
Across the street, three unmarked cars sat waiting for Redtop to make a move. Eddie Kasper had turned up with another couple of detectives, Garcia and Mason. Harper got in with Eddie and Denise left for home. The third car contained Special Agents Asa Shelton and Isaac Spencer.
The pack didn’t have to wait long before Redtop appeared at the fence to the disused schoolhouse. He pushed the fence aside and got into the van.
Harper looked up at the building. ‘You think someone else is in there?’
‘I think the body’s in the van,’ said Eddie. ‘If he’s going out of the city, then he’s already killed her.’
Harper looked again at the light. Something wasn’t right.
‘Let’s go, man,’ Eddie urged. ‘We’ve got to find his dumping ground.’
Maurice didn’t give Harper any more time to think. He pulled away from the kerb and drove off. After a few seconds, the three cars followed.
The journey upstate was slow. Maurice was driving carefully. Kasper hadn’t told Lafayette until they were on their way. He would’ve stopped them, no doubt, but now it was too late.
Lafayette was covering his back lately and always went straight up the chain of command. The top brass wanted to know every development in this case. He had to tell them that Tom Harper was with Kasper in the chase. He had to reinstate Tom Harper in his absence. Then he had to run for cover — if this fucked up, Lafayette was staring down a serious barrel of shit. They’d got the wrong man once; it didn’t bear thinking about what would happen if they got the wrong man twice.
They followed Maurice upstate, the three cars taking turns to lead and fall back. They were heading north on Interstate 87, travelling up past the Catskill State Park. After forty minutes they turned off and within an hour were driving through the dark in some slow, narrow rural roads.
The woods and trees of New York state loomed in the shadows and darkness at the side of the road. They might be driving half the night. Eddie focused on the road ahead. On the winding rural roads, keeping a distance was hard and keeping hidden was harder. If Maurice had a body in the car and he got a sense that he was being followed, then he could easily disappear into the hillside, switch off his lights and they’d be none the wiser.
‘You regret not checking the apartment?’ said Eddie.
‘I will if Lucy James isn’t in that truck, but I think she is,’ Tom replied.
‘You’re sure?’
‘No.’
‘We’ve got a lot riding on this one. I can call Lafayette and get them to take a look, what do you say?’
‘Yeah, you do that.’
‘Shit, we think this guy’s carrying a carcass, but if he’s not?’
‘Then I’ve just signed myself off the NYPD for life.’
As they got further and further from civilization, it became clear that Redtop knew exactly where he was going. It was hard going, all right. And then it got harder. Maurice’s truck disappeared.
The three following cars stopped. Mo’s van had just vanished. The drive back to the Interstate would take an hour, then it would take another hour to find a motel. It wasn’t on the agenda. Kasper led the cars about three miles up the road and the three dark saloons pulled into a yard on the edge of a pine wood. It was a working yard with a yellow digger and a hut of some kind.
The six men got out. It was cold. It was coming on for midnight and the chill was creeping deep beneath their clothes. They hadn’t dressed for a night on the mountains.
‘What are you two guys thinking?’ Kasper shouted across to Asa Shelton. They shook their heads and looked around.
‘Either he pulled off the road or he cut his lights and kept on going.’
‘You think someone could drive on these roads without lights?’ Kasper asked.
‘Maybe, if he knows the roads.’
Harper walked over to the wooden shack and took out a screwdriver. With a small torch, he unscrewed the padlock plate and opened the door. Outside, the other five men looked on as a light went on inside.
A minute later, all six men were in the wooden shack. It was a sizeable working hut, with a small stove, a table and some hard hats and logging gear. Kasper was going through the cupboards looking for food and the two Federal agents had set up their laptops. ‘I can’t believe we came out here with nothing to eat. It’s fucking unbelievable.’
Harper was standing by the large old map of the region on the board. ‘This is useful. Come take a look.’ The guys crowded around the map. ‘Here we are in this cut just under the mountainside. There’s one road going through the hill, so he’s got to be up here for only one reason. There’s a pig farm up the road. Looks a small operation. I say that’s where he’s heading. There’s nowhere else this road leads to. What do you say?’
They all nodded quietly. Harper was still one of the most respected detectives on the force.
‘Okay, then,’ said Harper. ‘If he saw our headlights in his mirror then he might have taken one of these old tracks. It takes him way off track but if he follows it round, it’ll come back to the farm. I think he’s got scared and taken the long road. So what I suggest we do is get ourselves up to the farm and dig in. If he’s coming, he’ll take a couple of hours to get around the mountain.’
‘Okay,’ said Eddie. ‘Let’s go watch some hogs!’