AMID THE SHADOWS

 

 

2

 

 

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was one of the largest and oldest in the entire city.  Able to accommodate over twenty two hundred people, its decorated Neo-Gothic spires towered three hundred and thirty feet above the street below.  Inside, the Pietà, sculpted by William Ordway Partridge, was three times the size of Michelangelo’s Pietà, and the cathedral’s combined organs numbered over nine thousand eight hundred pipes.  It was also the seat of the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

The cathedral was a national historic landmark and a popular tourist attraction, bringing tens of thousands of visitors every year.  The architecture was so impressive that few could resist taking a picture on the steps of its giant entrance and, with the warm spring weather, today was no exception.  Hundreds of visitors milled in and out of the cathedral, setting off a continual stream of flashes from their digital cameras, then visiting the gift shop on their way out to take home a souvenir and a piece of the city’s history.

Across the street, hundreds more stood back to snap pictures of the entire structure.  Outside a nearby café, people dined on a late morning snack of scones and coffee while enjoying the view.

At one of the outermost tables sat a man in a suit, taking in the scene.  His hair peppered with small amounts of gray, he looked more like a local businessman than a tourist.  Sitting calmly with his hand wrapped around a cup of coffee, he watched the mass of people entering and exiting the church.

A young, attractive barista with round glasses approached with a hot pot.  Seeing his cup was still untouched, she continued on to the other customers.  She thought it odd that he had been sitting there for almost an hour and not even taken a sip.  She gave him a curious glance before heading back inside.

A newlywed couple giggled and ran past the man’s table. The young husband pulled his bride in for a quick kiss before they turned and trotted across the street, holding hands.

The newlyweds were soon followed by a small group of Japanese tourists who crossed to the other side where they stopped and took pictures of each other, beaming in front of the church.

The man looked down at his Rolex and calmly looked back up to the cathedral.  He did not want to miss this.

 

At five minutes past eleven, the bombs went off.  A deafening explosion could be heard from within the church, and smoke burst through the giant front doors.  Everyone screamed and started to run when part of the ceiling began to collapse.  Huge sections of the beautiful stained glass windows broke apart and fell onto the people below.  The force of the collapsing roof pulled the west wall inward and down upon itself. 

The screams were muted by a thunder emanating from the cathedral’s enormous spires.  One began to move, wobbling from side to side until cracks appeared.  It too collapsed downward, pitching at its base, and causing it to lean and smash into the second spire.  Together, they came down in a deadly heap of smoke, dust, and rubble.

People came streaming out of the café in horror, including the barista.  No one noticed the well-dressed man stand up and walk to the corner.  There, he continued to watch the carnage as people ran screaming in all directions.  Many of them bloodied, and covered in dirt and ash.

Moments later sirens could be heard in the distance.  The man took one last look and began to turn away when something caught his eye.  He looked back to the smoldering building where, among the confusion, a mother was whisking her young daughter away to safety.  She ran, pulling her daughter behind her.  However, the girl was not looking at her mother, nor the terrible scene behind her.  The young girl was looking across the street and directly at him.  He watched her for a long moment as the girl continued staring at him.

Suddenly feeling uneasy, the man turned and walked quickly down the street, disappearing into the chaos.

 

 

3

 

 

Detectives Danny Griffin and Mike Buckley pulled their sedan into the parking lot of the Marriott Hotel.  Several patrol cars were already there and an ambulance was parked near the main entrance.

 After getting out and slamming the car doors behind them, both men approached the area near the ambulance that had been cordoned off with yellow tape.  As they passed an officer holding back a group of onlookers, Griffin looked up and counted the floors to the broken window; eight floors.

They reached two more officers in blue standing over the coroner, who was kneeling down and examining the body.

“Jumper?” Buckley asked, looking down.

The coroner shook her head.  “Hardly.  She screamed all the way down.”  She adjusted her rectangular framed glasses and looked carefully at the victim’s hands.  “Got quite a bit of blood under the fingernails too.”  She wrote something down in her notebook and then turned her attention back to the body.  “No, I’d say this lady put up quite a fight before going through that window.”

Griffin popped a piece of gum into his mouth.  “Where’s Roberts?”

The coroner tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear and made more notes.  “Upstairs, room 811.  Tell her I’ll be up in a few.”

Griffin nodded and looked around.  He and Buckley scanned the group of onlookers for anyone who might be watching the crime scene with a little too much interest.

“Check out that guy.”  Buckley nodded toward a man standing in the crowd with orange hair and piercings covering his face.  “He looks a little weird.”

Griffin looked at him and shook his head.  “That’s Cleveland weird, not New York weird.”

They backed up and surveyed the area, noting the basics: the glass, the distance from the building, and the position of the body.  A few minutes later, they entered the hotel and headed for the elevators.

 

Cheryl Roberts was the lead investigating officer on duty.  At five foot six with dark, shoulder-length brown hair, Roberts was known for being all business.  She greeted Griffin and Buckley with a nod when they entered.  Several other investigators were moving around the room, taking measurements and pictures.  The detectives looked around the room and walked toward Roberts, who had just finished with another officer.  Virtually everything in the room was either broken or completely destroyed.

“What do we have?” Buckley asked, stepping over some broken glass and a large piece of a picture frame.

Roberts sighed.  “Well, it’s not a suicide.  The other guests reported one hell of a fight, including gunshots.”  She pointed to bullet holes in one of the walls.  “They said it sounded like several people.  It ended with someone screaming and the sound of breaking glass which, not surprisingly, we’re assuming was the victim.”  She took a few steps over the debris and studied the couch laying on its side.  “By then, security was on their way up but found the room empty.  Whoever did this left in a hurry.”

Griffin got closer to the window and examined a piece of the broken edge.  “This glass has to be a good quarter-inch thick.”  He knocked on it with his knuckle.  “That must have been one hell of a push.”

Buckley looked around the other side of the room.  “Anything missing?”

“Not that we can see,” replied Roberts.  “Her purse still has her ID, money, and credit cards.  Earrings and a watch are on the nightstand in the other room, but they’re cheap.”

Griffin noted more bullet holes on the far wall.  “How much money did she have?”

“Forty-six dollars.  She wasn’t rich, that’s for sure.  We’re doing a full rundown on her now.”

Griffin looked at his watch.  “So, we have someone breaking in on what appears to be an average, middle-class woman at one thirty in the morning for something other than a simple robbery.”

“Even if it was a robbery,” Buckley said, “they wouldn’t have gotten downstairs before she called security.  So, at the very least, they had to know that she wasn’t going to be in any condition to make a phone call when it was over.”  He raised an eyebrow.  “Rape?”

Griffin shook his head.  “The body was fully clothed on the pavement downstairs.”  He looked around the room.  “I don’t see fragments of clothing up here either.”

Buckley looked at Roberts.  “You got the ID?” 

Roberts nodded and motioned at one of the officers.  He was talking on the phone and holding up her driver’s license.  “Her name is Barbara Baxter.  Lives upstate.  We’re guessing she was here on vacation.”

Another officer stuck his head around the corner.  “Hey, you guys are gonna want to see this.”  He motioned down the short hallway and all three followed him into the bedroom.  He crossed the room to a large dresser and pointed to one of the lower drawers, which was open.  Inside were several pieces of clothing, neatly folded.

Roberts bent down and looked at the clothes.  “These clothes don’t fit a woman.  They’re for a child.”  She turned to the officer with a look of urgency.  “Find out how many people checked into this room!”

 

The officer hung up the phone.  “Two checked in, a mother and daughter.  They guessed her age to be about six or seven.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Roberts, looking around the room.  “Search these rooms!” She got down on the floor and looked under the bed.  They all quickly searched every nook of the small rooms, but found nothing.

“Get downstairs and find someone who saw the girl.  See if we can get a picture or drawing.”  The officer nodded and ran for the door.  “And check the security cameras!  See if they got a shot of her!”

Griffin watched Roberts’ focus sharpen.  She was a great investigator, but she was also a mother; and there was no greater instinct than that of a mother regarding a child. 

“If she’s not here,” Roberts continued, “then they probably took her.  I think that woman fought to protect her child, and lost.”

Griffin could see her beginning to get angry.  Roberts instructed everyone in the room, except Griffin and Buckley, to drop everything and search first the floor then the entire hotel.  She also had the hotel’s security team checking all footage from the cameras.  A kidnapping was a different priority to cops.  A kidnapping meant there was still hope.

“Get everything,” Roberts said, “ballistics, tire marks, every fingerprint we can find, everything.”

Suddenly, one of the investigators burst into the room.  “Come quick!”  He disappeared back out into the 8^th floor hallway with the others running after him.  They ran down to the end of the hallway where a laundry cart sat next to one of the doors and another officer was waiting.  They all came to a stop and looked at him expectantly.  The officer calmly motioned toward an oversized cloth laundry bag.  At the bottom sat a small blond girl, looking up, and scared to death.