Deadly Assets Read online

The officer met his eyes, then looked at Lauren, and slowly shook his head. “I’m really sorry . . .” he said, then automatically crossed himself, touching his right fingers to his forehead, his chest, and then his left and right shoulders.

  There were gasps from the crowd.

  Tony struggled to breathe. Tears now flowed down both cheeks.

  “But . . . but . . .” he said, then cried out, “Lauren!”

  Slowly rocking her, he buried his face in her neck and began sobbing.

  [ THREE ]

  Franklin Square

  Sixth and Race Streets, Philadelphia

  Saturday, December 15, 10:20 A.M.

  Not a half hour later and a dozen blocks away, Melanie Baker, an attractive thirty-two-year-old brunette, had just helped her daughter, Abigail, climb off the seat of a fiberglass replica of a giant bald eagle in flight on the Liberty Carousel.

  “Santa now! I want to see Santa!” the six-year-old said, pointing across the snow-covered park to the big white tent nearby. It had a huge sign reading NORTH POLE and a pair of twenty-foot-tall striped candy canes marking the entrance. Elves in green outfits seemed everywhere, most handing out real candy canes to the children.

  Melanie looked over her shoulder, scanning the heavy crowd. She glanced at her cell phone and saw that her husband had just sent a text: “Almost there.”

  Having forgotten his wallet, he had run a dozen blocks to retrieve it from their apartment in the Northern Liberties section, just north of Center City.

  Melanie adjusted the fleece stocking cap, a white one dotted with little green Christmas trees, over Abigail’s sandy blond hair as she looked in her eyes. “You want to wait for Daddy?”

  Abigail shook her head. “Santa now? Please?” She pronounced it peas.

  Melanie glanced at the big white tent and thought, Well, they probably have heaters in there.

  “Okay, Abby, okay,” she said, smiling. “Daddy can catch up. Let’s go see Santa.”

  Melanie walked Abigail over to where they had left their stroller with those of the other visitors. She slipped her handbag over the right handle and, holding Abigail’s hand, pushed the stroller through the gate in the low black iron fence that surrounded the carousel. Then they went onto the brick walkway and joined the crowd of families headed to the white tent.

  Franklin Square, dating back to 1682, was one of the five original public spaces that William Penn designed when laying out the city. It had gone through rough periods over the years—the worst most recently in the 1960s, when it was a squalid area all but abandoned to the homeless for years on end.

  But now the park—which legend held was where in 1752 Ben Franklin had flown the kite dangling a key in a storm and captured electricity from lightning (others said he flew it from the spire of Christ Church a few blocks away)—had again become a family-friendly spot. It featured the city’s only miniature golf course, the carousel, and playgrounds, and, now for the holidays, a child-pleasing Christmas light show that flowed out from the ten-foot-tall kite “flying” above the water fountain and the big white North Pole tent for visits and photographs with Santa Claus.

  Abigail was now anxiously pulling her mother toward the tent. They passed the path that led to the miniature golf course; it was roped off, and a sign read CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE. A loudspeaker on top of a pole on the corner filled the air with the Philly Pops orchestra performing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” Standing under the speaker, a green-costumed elf—Melanie noticed he was a young teenager with a bad case of acne—handed out candy canes.

  The teenaged boy handed one to Abigail, who said, “Thank you!” then looked up at her mother, grinning as she waved it like a trophy.

  “Almost to Santa!” Abigail said, and tugged again on her mother’s hand.

  “Almost,” Melanie said, then heard her phone going off. It was the ring tone of Sinatra singing “Fly Me to the Moon” that she recently had linked to her husband’s cell phone number.

  “Let’s go faster, Mommy!”

  “Hang on, Abby, it’s Daddy calling,” Melanie said, steering the stroller off the crowded brick walkway.

  They stopped short of where a great big man with light brown skin sat hunched over on one of the park’s wooden benches. He wore jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt, and was sweating and clearly trying to catch his breath.

  As Melanie quickly reached with her free hand into her purse to dig out the phone, the sudden motion made the stroller tip backward. It gained momentum, then slammed to the ground, causing the purse to spill most of its contents, including the phone, which had stopped ringing. The stroller handle also knocked the candy cane from Abigail’s hand, crushing it.

  “Damn it!” Melanie blurted, then let go of Abigail’s hand and bent over to pick up everything. The phone began ringing again and she grabbed it first, and answered it: “Hey, meet us at the North Pole tent.”

  She listened as she refilled her purse, then said, “I’ll ask her, but she really wants to see Santa,” then turned around to Abigail.

  “Ab—”

  A deep chill shot through Melanie.

  Abigail wasn’t standing there.

  “Abby!” she called out, standing up and frantically looking around.

  Melanie then looked over at the white tent, and walked quickly toward it, scanning the crowd as she went.

  Nothing.

  She stopped.

  “Abby!”

  Where could she have gone?

  Sick to her stomach, Melanie suddenly felt on the edge of throwing up.

  Stay calm!

  She inhaled deeply, then slowly let it out as she looked back to where the stroller lay on the ground. Then she looked farther back—and in the crowd caught a glimpse of a white-and-green cap.

  Oh, thank God!

  Abigail was walking toward the teenager in the elf costume.

  “Abby!” Melanie yelled, running after her.

  Abigail kept walking. Melanie thought that the Christmas music blaring from the loudspeaker caused her not to be heard.

  Melanie then noticed that the big man who’d been on the wooden bench was also walking toward the teenager in the elf costume, who now was bent over his candy bag.

  Then Melanie couldn’t believe her eyes—the big man suddenly reached down and took Abigail by the hand, pulling her around the pole that roped off the path to the miniature golf course.

  “No!” Melanie yelled from deep down.

  And then in the next instant, Abigail disappeared around the corner.

  Melanie screamed, “Help! He grabbed my daughter!”

  As people in the crowd began to comprehend what Melanie was saying, a path opened for her, some horrified parents pulling their children into their arms and holding them tight.

  The teenager in the elf costume saw Melanie running and yelling. Then he realized that she was looking at him, and pointing past him.

  Melanie again screamed, “He grabbed my daughter!”

  The teenager looked around the corner, then bolted down the path after them.

  A minute later Melanie rounded the corner where the teenager had been standing. The huge loudspeaker began playing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

  —

  Melanie’s lungs burned. She had been running down the empty path for what she thought felt like forever. Her mind raced—What will happen to Abby? What if I never see her again?—and then she told herself to think positive thoughts.

  I’ll find her. I have to find her.

  She came to a sharp curve—and wondered if she was hallucinating.

  “Oh my God!” she said, and felt herself running faster than she thought possible.

  Abigail, alone, had suddenly appeared around the curve and was walking toward her.

  “Come to me, Abby!” Melanie cried, her arms outstretched.


  It wasn’t until Melanie held Abigail tightly that she noticed there was blood—it had smeared off the back of Abigail’s winter coat. Melanie frantically pulled off the coat and checked her daughter for wounds. She found none.

  Melanie then heard the heavy footfalls of someone running up behind her.

  She quickly turned to look.

  Two Philadelphia policemen were coming down the path.

  [ FOUR ]

  3001 Powelton Avenue, Philadelphia

  Saturday, December 15, 10:22 A.M.

  “Tim, I asked that there not be any more talk about any death threats,” Emily O’Brien said, crouching and pouring water from a plastic pitcher into the Christmas tree stand.

  She looked over her shoulder. Her husband leaned against the door frame to the kitchen. He wore a faded navy cotton bathrobe, under which a white T-shirt was visible, and he had his bare feet stuffed into fleece-lined slippers.

  “Okay, Tim? Please? Nothing came of the others, and I don’t want that awful feeling of being afraid again. Especially during the holidays.”

  Emily, an attractive redhead with pale, freckled skin, stood and crossed the room to him. Getting up on tiptoes, she tenderly kissed her husband of twenty months.

  At six-foot-three and two hundred thirty pounds, Tim O’Brien was beefy but soft, a teddy bear of a guy whose idea of a workout was pounding down a couple—or more—pints of Penn Pale Ale after an intense day of researching and writing investigative news stories. Now, having just awoken after a late night out, the reporter’s big hands were wrapped around a steaming mug of black coffee that he cradled to his chest.

  “This should be a happy time,” Emily went on, smiling as she met his dark eyes.

  Tim nodded.

  “Em, I’m simply repeating what I was told at the office. Just be careful. You should always—not just now because of the threat—be conscious of your surroundings when you’re out. Don’t be distracted by your phone, texting, talking, whatever. The security guys at work call it—”

  “Situational awareness,” she interrupted. “I know. I remember from the last two threats after your stories ran.”

  He grunted, then leaned down and, dropping a hand to her lower back and pulling her in against him, kissed her deeply. After he let her loose, she smiled and squeezed past him, heading into the kitchen with the empty plastic pitcher. He admired her beautiful figure—wondering when it would start showing signs of her pregnancy—then quickly took two steps after her and swatted her swaying buttocks.

  She jumped and squealed, then looked back over her shoulder.

  “You’re bad,” she said.

  “I do love you, Em. Just want you safe.”

  She blushed, then playfully wagged an index finger at him. “But I love you more!”

  Tim O’Brien smiled and gently shook his head. Then he took a sip of coffee and for a long moment seriously considered grabbing Emily by the hand and tugging her back to what he figured was probably still a warm bed.

  Then he felt a different call of nature, an urgent one.

  He glanced at the front door of the eighty-year-old row house that was in the University City section of Philly, just across the Schuylkill River from Center City. The upper third of the wooden door, like those of the other ten homes on their side of the block, framed a glass pane. When they’d moved in—they’d been renting since their senior year, hers at Drexel and his at Penn, both institutions a short walk away—Emily had hung beige lace over the window for some semblance of privacy.

  Now, through a gap in the lace, Tim could see a wall of steady snowflakes. He felt a draft as an icy wind whistled in through the door frame. His eyes went lower and he saw, more importantly, that the door’s new heavy-duty dead bolt still was locked.

  Tim quickly turned and headed for the half-bath off the hallway.

  —

  The tiny room was chilly. Pulling the door shut with his left hand, he flipped the wall switches for the light and exhaust vent with his right elbow. The single bulb in the fixture over the mirror flickered on, then glowed steadily as the old exhaust fan rattled to life in the high ceiling.

  Maneuvering his big frame in the cramped space, he hurriedly put the coffee cup on the floor, grabbed the copy of Philly magazine off the cracked porcelain lid of the water tank, adjusted his bathrobe accordingly—then grimaced as he settled onto what felt like a frozen plastic seat.

  —

  A few minutes later, as Emily washed and dried plates and glasses and returned them to the cupboard, she thought she heard the sound of knocking. She eased the last dish onto the stack on the shelf with a light clank, then turned her head to listen. Almost immediately there came the sound of rapping on the wooden front door.

  “Tim, babe?” she called out over her shoulder. “Can you get that?”

  When he didn’t answer, she sighed and walked out of the kitchen. She glanced around the living room, found it empty, then heard the unmistakable rumbling of the bathroom vent fan.

  He could be in there for days, she thought, then, as knuckles rapped loudly on the glass pane, quickly turned to look at the front door.

  Wiping her hands on a kitchen towel as she walked toward the door, she could make out through the window, silhouetted against the snowfall, the dark forms of two Hispanic-looking men standing on the covered porch. They wore identical uniforms, faded navy blue, that Emily thought looked vaguely familiar. Coming closer, she then saw the company logotype on the breast pocket of one man’s jacket—a cartoon cockroach on its back, legs stiff in the air, bulging Ping-Pong ball–like eyes with black Xs, and the words PETE’S PEST CONTROL.

  Did Tim call for the bug guy?

  When she pulled back on the beige lace window cover, the larger, heavyset man who had been knocking on the door noticed. He then held up a clipboard and pointed to what looked like a standard order form on it. Emily had a moment to make out, under another representation of the cartoon cockroach, a handwritten “3001 Powelton Ave, U-City” but little more before he pulled it back. The other man had what looked like an equipment bag hanging from his shoulder, his right hand inside it.

  He must have, she thought, reaching for the latch of the dead bolt, either him or the landlord . . .

  —

  Tim jerked his head when he thought he heard a muffled scream. A moment later, he definitely heard and felt a thump reverberate on the hardwood flooring and then heavy footfalls moving quickly through the house.

  What in the hell . . . ? he thought, dropping the magazine and quickly getting off the can.

  Then he clearly heard Emily cry out in pain. And then glass breaking and another thump.

  “Emily!” he called as he reached for the doorknob.

  The bathroom door exploded inward, a dirty tan leather boot splintering the wood. Tim saw that the toe of the scuffed boot was coated in blood. The boot kicked again at the door, holding it wide open.

  Filling the doorway was a heavyset Hispanic male in a blue uniform. His face had a hard, determined look—and his right hand held a black, long-bladed weapon. The blade also was wet with blood.

  A machete . . . ?

  The blade flashed as the man swung it up, then quickly down, striking Tim.

  Tim did not immediately notice any pain. But there was an odd smell, almost a metallic one, and a strange warm moistness on his torso. He looked down at his open robe—and saw his T-shirt was slit, a bloody gash along the center of his big belly and a tangle of what looked like bluish-white tubing bulging out from the gash.

  Then he heard the man make a deep primal grunt, saw the blade flash again—and for a split second felt something strike hard at the side of his neck.

  And then Tim felt . . . absolutely nothing.

  II

  [ ONE ]

  Office of the Mayor, City Hall Room 215

  1 Penn S
quare, Philadelphia

  Saturday, December 15, 12:36 P.M.

  “The bastard killed one of Santa’s elves, Mr. Mayor!” James Finley said, his usually controlled voice now practically a shriek. The frail-looking forty-year-old—he was five-foot-two and maybe a hundred pounds—was head of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Office. “‘Murderer Savagely Slits Throat of Santa’s Elf!’ That’s how the media will play this. And there’s no way we can put a happy face on that!”

  From behind his massive wooden desk, Mayor Jerome H. Carlucci, who was fifty-nine, looked at Chief Executive Adviser Edward Stein, Esquire—a slender, dark-haired thirty-year-old who was writing notes on one of his ubiquitous legal pads while leaning against the door frame that led to his office—and then looked to the couch at First Deputy Police Commissioner Dennis V. Coughlin, fifty-one, who met Carlucci’s eyes and raised his bushy gray eyebrows in a gesture that the mayor read as What can I say? There is no way to put a happy face on that.

  The close relationship between Jerry Carlucci and Denny Coughlin—they looked as if they could have been brothers, or at least cousins, both tall, heavyset, large-boned, ruddy-faced—went back decades to when Carlucci and Coughlin had been hotshot young cops being groomed for bright futures. Carlucci often boasted that before being elected mayor he’d held every position on the Philly PD except that of policewoman.

  Stein and Finley were recent additions to the Office of the Mayor. Neither had been there quite a month.

  Finley was pacing in front of the large flat-screen television that was on the wall of the mayor’s elegant but cluttered office. Tuned to Channel 1009, which was Philly News Now around-the-clock coverage on the KeyCom cable system, the muted television showed a live camera shot of Franklin Park.

  Behind the intense, goateed, middle-aged African-American reporter speaking into the camera lens was a yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape strung across a snow-crusted brick walkway. A uniformed policeman was holding the tape up as two men wearing medical examiner office jackets wheeled under it a gurney carrying what clearly was a full body bag. A small crowd of bystanders watched from the far side of the yellow tape.