Chapter 5

John’s Dodge Charger was the four-door model. David was driving and beside him Dr. Hansen was watching the highway in silence. Joseph was lying in the back seat, asleep. It had long since they had taken the route to Manhattan, and approaching the Williamsburg Bridge on the East River. David couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened at John’s house, and no matter how hard he tried to justify himself, he couldn’t stop thinking about the man who had taken his life. Somehow he thought that war and death would no longer be part of his life, and there he was again, killing for a cause he still didn’t fully understand. All he knew was that if he hadn’t taken that man’s life, everyone, even himself, would be dead at that time. He thought of Joseph, and a small apex of consolation reached his soul when he thought that he had at least saved an innocent child from a death that according to that sinister man was certain. He looked at Dr. Hansen. He was still watched the highway.

“Forgive me for what you had to see at your friend’s house,” he said at last. “In the Special Forces taught us to activate the survival instinct in situations of risk. It was an automatic act.”

Dr. Hansen was still silent for a few more seconds.

“Don’t worry,” he said, after a brief sigh. “The important thing is that Joseph is safe. Thanks for what you did.”

“That however is murder, and they tried to kill you too. I still think that going to the authorities would be the best. At this time they should be at your friend's house trying up ends, and sooner or later they could know the truth of what happened.”

When he got the call, homicide detective Mark Forney of the NYPD had barely four hours of bedtime. He lazily took his cell phone from the bedside table and still half asleep answered. He heard for a few seconds.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

But it took twenty-five minutes. When he arrived at the house of the event, a uniformed officer received him and informed him.

“We have four dead and one wounded who has already been taken to the hospital,” the policeman said. “The homeowner says that the three of the kitchen had come to steal through the back door at the same time they did two more in front, and when they saw each other the shooting began. The dead of the living-room was eliminated by a stab wound in the neck and four shots.”

Detective Forney entered John’s house and looked at the dead man in the living-room. There was a large pool of blood. The coroner was checking the body and an assistant was taking pictures. He went to the kitchen and saw the other three also on the floor and in the middle of another pool of blood. He immediately noticed that something wasn’t right. When he returned to the living-room, a woman in her thirties, blonde and short-haired and scruffy-looking entered the house. When she saw him, she smiled at him and stood by his side, greeting him and watching the daunting scene.

“Could you sleep, Doris?” Mark asked. “It seems not.”

The woman smiled again, resigned.

“You know I don’t,” she replied. “I had barely closed my eyes when they called me.”

Homicide detective Doris Ventura had been Mark Forney’s partner for four years, and they were both a successful couple. She dressed casually and simply, and it seemed that little cared about her appearance by not wearing almost makeup, although strangely she didn’t look ugly. He was a handsome man, thirty-five years old, he liked to wear his hair a little long despite the claims from his superiors, but he didn’t look bad, rather it made look more attractive to women. His way of dressing was not so formal, and although he sometimes wore a suit, he wasn’t wearing a tie, which for him was more comfortable, and an advantage in possible clashes with violent criminals. His military training had left him the habit of exercising daily and keeping fit, so he had in his apartment a small gym with weights and a treadmill, in addition to practicing his movements of Karate and Kung Fu. He was still single and at that time had no a formal relationship with any woman. When his partner asked him when he would marry, he simply replied that no woman deserved to have a police officer as a husband, given the risks that this profession implied. In the labor field he was characterized by his visual acuity by detailing clues and going beyond what is normally perceived by an ordinary person. He had critical thinking; he was shrewd, conscientious, methodical and obsessive with the cases entrusted. He was relentless with criminals and never ceased to catch his suspicious man or woman, depending on the case. His partner wasn’t very different from him, and despite his appearance, Doris Ventura was also obsessive with her cases, and although she didn’t have the insight of his partner or his ability to see beyond the merely apparent, she was cunning, smart and dedicated. Nor was she married, but she maintained a relationship with a Wall Street businessman who was completely the opposite of her in terms of appearance: formal, carefully preserved appearance and fine. He liked the relationship he had with her because it was a way out of the elegant New York cloister. In addition, the woman gave simplicity to his life, as he said. Even she wondered what the elegant man saw her, and why he was with her, but didn’t bother to look for answers, as long as they continued to carry on the relationship as well as they had been.

“The owner says it was a double robbery that went wrong,” Doris said. “But I'm sure you don’t believe that story.”

Mark bent down to look more closely at the dead man; the coroner had finished checking the body and got up to give him space. Mark put on gloves and then checked the neck wound. He also checked the chest wounds.

“Why would they bother stabbing him if he already had four shots in the chest, or vice versa?” He wondered, but Doris knew the question was for everyone present at the place.

“The weapon with which the neck wound was made doesn’t appear,” said the coroner. “He had already been stabbed when he was shot. I will find out what kind of knife the killer used for the marks on the wound. The owner says that there was a fourth assailant with the three of the kitchen, who managed to escape the massacre, and maybe he took the knife.”

Mark looked around and then got up.

“And the injured, what did he say?”

“So far nothing,” said the coroner. “He refuses to speak. When emergency services arrived they found him under the dead man with a shot in the arm at close range and the owner of the house pointing him with a shotgun.”

A white man in his fifties, bald and with a mustache, wearing a suit and overcoat, entered the house. He was Captain Steven Mulligan, Director of the Homicide Unit and boss of Mark and Doris. He looked around and then the corpse on the floor.

“And, what do you tell me?” He asked, while Mark got up again, taking off his gloves.

“Something tells me it wasn’t a robbery that went wrong,” said Mark.

“I knew you would say that,” Doris chuckled.

Mark looked at her for a few seconds, and then continued:

“I don’t like that hypothesis of theft. Two gangs at the same time? While it is true that the owner is an important scientist, I don’t see the reason why two gangs want to rob him at the same time. This guy here has an effective neck wound with the firm intention of cutting the jugular and incidentally sectioning part of his cervical, so it seems to me that was someone who knew what was doing, and has a lot of experience in it. The shots he received because surely the one who stabbed him used it as a shield, maybe to protect himself from the one on the floor. That’s why he had it up when the units arrived.”

Captain Mulligan pointed at him with his right index finger.

“The question is: what were they doing here? I want you interrogate the scientist and his wife again. Check the identities of the dead and if they really were members of criminal gangs. Talk to the neighbors again to see if anyone saw or remembers anything else about the incident. Go to the hospital and interrogate the survivor and get the real reason why they were presented here. So far he hasn’t wanted to talk but try to do it and be fast, I don’t want the Mayor breathing me in the neck, you know he’s quite annoying. I’ll take care of the press.”

Mark and Doris nodded and left the house after Captain Mulligan.