Blood List(47)

"Uh, thanks," Carl said and took the weapon.

The trio headed down the stairs with a score of proud apartment dwellers in tow.





Chapter 16





January 9th, 8:18 PM EST; South Manhattan Municipal Hospital storage facility; New York City, New York.



Now confined to a wheelchair just to deal with the pain, Gene had ridiculous amounts of paperwork to fill out. Swarms of policemen gathered scattered files and brought them back to Carl and Doug. They set aside anything that matched one of their victims and piled up the rest to let hospital interns organize at a later date.

They found the body of the sniper on the roof of the western building. He had suffered a single round to the throat and had drowned in his own blood. The man wore normal civilian clothes and had apparently hidden the rifle under his heavy winter coat. He had a USMC tattoo on his right bicep, and Sam confirmed that his ID was fake.

The NYPD had conniptions about Officer Mullins. When he had shown up at the courthouse to pick up the warrant, the desk clerk hadn't recognized him. Following protocol, she had run his ID. His Personnel Record File showed that he was a six-year veteran of the force, but no one had ever heard of him.

With Sam's help, they determined that his credentials had been loaded into all relevant systems less than an hour after Gene had called for the warrant. The e-mail that requested an officer deliver the warrant still sat in the court clerk's "Sent" folder, but had been deleted at the server right after it had been sent.



Meanwhile, Jerri reviewed her notes from her witness interviews. Juan Martinez' Mexican accent was thick enough to be charming but clear enough to be easily understood. She found herself reading and re-reading his testimony.

You're not going to believe this. Hell, I saw it with my own two eyes, and I don't believe it. I'm up on the roof for a cigarillo when I hear the glass break. I see the man with the rifle shooting into the other building. I'm two floors up, si? So the man with the rifle, he don't see me.

I see the smoke, and the roof door, it opens a crack. The rifleman shoots POW-POW-POW, and the door, it clicks back shut. Then the roof door flies open, and Señor Paul dives out. He comes up and POW, the man with the rifle drops.

Now, I see a lot of blood, but Señor Paul I don't think can see it. He don't know if he hit the man with the rifle, si? So he run across and up onto the fire escape and jumps! Hijole! I never seen a man jump so far! He land two floors down on the other fire escape. I don't know how his legs stay unbroken, you know?

So he run up the stairs, and he see the man with the rifle lying bleeding, and he run to the edge of the roof and jumps again! I tell you, Señora, at first I think Señor Paul is just a brave man, but now I know he is touched by God. It's not as far to my building from the other, but when I tell you he jumped again, he jumped again! He's loco.

I don't see where he land, but he come running up the roof yelling "Rope! Rope!" I see you and the two guys get out, but still he yell "Rope! Rope!" So I run inside and he with me, and we get the neighbors and make the rope from the towels and the sheets, and Señor Johnson, he weight the end with his boy's trophy-ball. And Señor Paul throw it over to the other men.

When the roof fell, all we see is sparks and the men disappeared. So we pull, and they come out, and they're okay! I tell you, Señora Bates, Señor Paul is like Spiderman. In all my years, I've never seen such a thing.

"Hey, look!" Carl yelled, distracting her. Though missing eyebrows and oddly lustrous, his face beamed with triumph. He held up an old photograph from one of the files gathered from the street. "It's Jeanette Santiago; victim number four. She matched no pre-1980 medical records, but here she is. She's listed here as Jane Doe, Name Refused. I think that pretty much proves Doug pegged the connection." He looked at the burned building and the multitude of flashing red-and-blue emergency lights. "Well, plus someone doesn't want us to see where this trail leads." He trailed off and looked back to the file. "It says she was here for only one week, treated by Dr. Abraham Lefkowitz."

Doug held up a paper. "Larry Johnson, Jr., also with no pre-1980 records. He's right here, treated by Dr. A. S. Lefkowitz."

"Okay," Sam chimed in from HQ. "Here's a resume less than ten years old. Lefkowitz worked for South Manhattan Municipal Hospital's Methadone Clinic as a general practitioner and 'addiction rehabilitation specialist' from 1973 to 1978. Give me a minute to find where he is now." She mumbled to herself over the COM while she dug through data. Her voice rose as she found relevant information and shared it with the team.

"Currently's got a private practice in Manassas. Home info unlisted, I'll find that in a sec. Left the clinic to go work in pharmaceutical development. Started his own lab. Sold some patents for–wow!–seventy million dollars. And his current home address is 132 Alabaster Circle, just outside of good old Manassas, Virginia."