“Teaching cops to fly drones,” Fischer said.
Kylie’s eyes lit up. “Now you’re talking.”
Fifteen minutes later, we rolled up to a huge training facility where the streets are lined with buildings that are set on fire regularly. There was a bombed-out city bus with mannequin arms and legs sticking out of the charred remains, and there were more plastic bodies—civilians and fallen firefighters—lying in the street.
Jerry Brainard was waiting for us in front of a row of mock storefronts. “I’m really sorry to drag you all the way out here, guys. There’s almost no place in the city where you can legally fly, so the FDNY lets us use their space.”
“No problem,” Kylie said. “I heard you’re the man to see if a girl wants to lose her drone virginity.”
I jumped in. “Before we get to the fun and games, can we focus on the mission at hand?”
Jerry Brainard has the unflappable temperament of a man who sits at a console fielding emergency calls all day. “Actually, a short lesson couldn’t hurt.” He showed Kylie his iPhone. “Your controls are all on your phone or your iPad.”
Thirty seconds into the tutorial she grabbed his phone. “Got it,” she said.
Kylie flew like she drove. Total cowgirl.
“Pretty good,” Brainard said. “But aren’t you the same cop who ran a million-dollar Mercedes into a—”
“Exigent circumstances,” she yelled. “I was completely exonerated.”
He gave her another few minutes in the air, then had her bring it in.
Brainard took the phone, tapped on the glass a few times, and handed it back to her. “What does this tell you?” he said.
“Holy shit,” Kylie said, staring at the screen. “It tells me we’re about to make the DA a very happy man.”
CHAPTER 49
“So what do you think?” Kylie said on the way back to the precinct. “Did Marschand and Freemont murder Aubrey Davenport?”
“I know Cates told us not to rule them out,” I said, “but what’s their motive?”
“That sex tape of her and the judge is probably the tip of the iceberg,” Kylie said. “Who knows how many there are? Troy Marschand found them, told his boyfriend, and they decided to go into the extortion business. But first they had to kill her.”
“Oh, I can picture that conversation,” Danny said. “Troy says, ‘Hey Dylan, let’s get a gun and whack my boss.’ And Dylan says, ‘No, I have a better idea. First we convince her that the two of us want to have autoerotic sex with her, then we take her out to this deserted smallpox hospital on Roosevelt Island, where she and Janek go to do all their kinky—’”
“Stop,” Kylie said. “I get your point.”
“I think Danny’s right,” I said. “Janek Hoffmann killed her. Troy and Dylan found the sex tapes on Aubrey’s computer after the fact. Like Cates said: the blackmail was most likely a crime of opportunity.”
“Fine. We’ll nail them on extortion and see where we can take it from there,” Kylie said. “All I know is that these two assholes think they’re smarter than we are, and we’re about to show them they’re not.”
“Technically, they are smarter than we are,” Tommy Fischer said. “They’re just not smarter than Jerry Brainard.”
Danny dropped us off at the precinct, and we stayed just long enough to pick up a car. Then we headed downtown to ADA Selma Kaplan’s office to tell her what we had on Marschand and Freemont.
“Do we have a case?” I asked.
“If you find what you think you’re going to find, you’ll have a slam dunk,” she said. “But I doubt if it’ll ever come to trial. Judge Rafferty would be crazy to go public with his sexual hijinks, and the perps would be even crazier not to plead out.”
“We need a couple of warrants,” I said.
“There’s not a judge in the building who wouldn’t be happy to sign off,” Kaplan said. “The only one who can’t is the aggrieved party, the Honorable Michael J. Rafferty.”
It was the fastest warrant we’d ever gotten.
Troy and Dylan lived on Franklin Street in Tribeca, which was only a five-minute drive from the courthouse. Corcoran and Fischer were parked outside their building.
“Marschand did a Starbucks run about twenty minutes ago,” Danny said. “Right now they’re both in the apartment sipping lattes and thinking about where to spend the DA’s money next.”
“Let’s go upstairs and ruin their day,” Kylie said.
We instructed the doorman not to ring up, and the four of us took the elevator to the fifth floor. Kylie knocked on the door, and Troy opened it.
“Remember me?” she said. “Detective MacDonald. My partner and I are working on the Davenport murder.”
“Of course I remember. But I thought you arrested Janek Hoffmann.”
“We did. You’ve been so helpful already. Sorry to keep bothering you. We just have some loose ends to tie up. Can we come in?”
“Sure.” He gave a yell. “Dylan, the two homicide detectives are here.”
We walked in, followed by Corcoran and Fischer.
“And they brought reinforcements,” Troy said with a laugh.
Dylan Freemont joined us, and once again I was weirded out by how much alike they looked. More like brothers than lovers. They were both wearing jeans and T-shirts. Dylan’s was black; Troy’s was lavender.
I nodded at Corcoran and Fischer, and they took out their cell phones.
“How can we help?” Troy asked.
“Well, here’s the thing,” Kylie said. She stopped, interrupted by the familiar thrum of the bass and the doot-didoot-didoot beat of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.” It was the ringtone on Troy’s cell.
Seconds later, another phone rang. The ringtone on this one was Madonna singing “Vogue.” Dylan answered his phone.
“Like I started to say,” Kylie boomed, “we’ve got a search warrant for your cell phones and your iPads. Hand them over, boys.”
The two of them were dumbstruck. Troy handed his phone over immediately. Dylan balked.
“Thank you,” Corcoran said, yanking Dylan’s phone out of his hand and giving it to Kylie. “Now, which way to the iPads?”
“I don’t have a fucking iPad,” Dylan said.
“Then have a seat,” Danny said, grabbing him by the shoulder and forcing him to the floor.
Troy was more cooperative. “I don’t have an iPad. I have a Kindle. Is that okay?”
“Let’s just start with Dylan’s phone,” Kylie said, thumbing through his apps. “I heard you’re an actor. Have I seen you in anything?”
Dylan spit in her direction.
“Son of a gun…Dylan must have a drone, because he’s got one of those DJI apps. Let’s take a quick peek at your flight history.”
“You have no right to look at my shit, bitch.”
“Read the warrant, dude. I’ve got plenty of rights. Hey, Zach, take a look at this. Friday, May twelfth. Dylan was flying his bird over the High Line at the exact same time we were there. He loses altitude around Twenty-Fifth Street, then takes off again and heads for Penn Station.”
I leaned over her shoulder. It was all there. “You know what the cops call this, Dylan?”
He scowled.
“Hard evidence,” I said.
“And speaking of rights,” Kylie said, “Dylan Freemont and Troy Marschand, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.” She finished the Miranda warning and asked if they understood. Troy, tears streaming down his face, said a meek “Yes.”
“Dylan,” Kylie said. “Do you understand?”
“Yes! What’s the fucking charge?”
“Conspiracy.”
“Conspiracy for what?”
“Well, we’ve got you cold for extortion,” Kylie said. “But we’re looking to put murder on the table.”
Troy made a loud retching sound and vomited down the front of his lavender shirt.
“We didn’t kill her,” Dylan said. “I swear to God.”
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My phone rang. It was Cates. I held up my hand. “Hold that thought, Mr. Freemont.”
I answered the phone. “Yes, Captain?”
“I don’t care what you’re doing,” she said. “Drop it now, and get your asses over to Foley Square.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nathan Hirsch is sitting on the courthouse steps handcuffed to a bomb.”
CHAPTER 50
“You take the happy couple,” I said to Corcoran and Fischer. “We’re out of here.”
Kylie followed me out the door. As we ran down the stairs I told her all I knew. “Nathan Hirsch. Handcuffed to a bomb. Foley Square.”
We jumped in the car. I hit the light bar but kept the siren off. I still had Cates on the phone. I put her on speaker.
“We’re on the way,” I said. “What have you got?”
“Ten minutes ago Hirsch was on his way to court. A male Hispanic comes up behind him, cuffs a briefcase to his wrist, shoves a burner phone in his hand, and says, ‘Don’t do anything stupid, or I’ll blow you to kingdom come.’”
“Segura,” I said.
“We have a positive ID,” Cates said.
“Then what happened?”
“He called 911.”
“What?” Kylie yelled. “Segura tells him not to do anything stupid, and the first thing he does is call 911?”
“You’re not tracking with me, MacDonald,” Cates said. “Hirsch didn’t do anything, except probably piss his pants. Segura called 911. Then he patched it into a three-way call: the victim, the perp, and the 911 operator.”
I heard what she said, but I couldn’t make sense of it. “Why?” I asked.
“My best guess is that Segura wants Hirsch to confess all his sins, and calling 911 guarantees that it’s all going to be recorded and released to the press.”
Kylie made a hard right onto Lafayette.
“Right now Hirsch is spilling his guts out,” Cates said. “He owned up to the Thailand drug run twenty years ago, he admitted he’s got this hooker set up in a condo in Jersey, and he just confessed to bribing a witness in a libel case he won last year. That alone will get him disbarred.”
“Segura spent twenty years in a Bangkok prison because of this asshole and his friends,” I said. “Do you think he’s going to be happy with Hirsch losing his law license and doing a Martha Stewart in a minimum security country club?”
“Almost there,” Kylie said, making a left on Duane.
“I don’t care how good a lawyer Hirsch is,” I said. “He’s not going to be able to argue for his life. Segura wants him dead, but first he wants to completely humiliate him—destroy whatever legacy this weasel may possibly have. And I’ll bet that as soon as Hirsch coughs up every smarmy, slimy thing he ever did, Segura is going to blow him up the same way he killed the other two.”
We turned left onto Centre Street, and Kylie hit the brakes. The New York County Supreme Court building at 60 Centre is directly across the street from Foley Square, an iconic landmark in lower Manhattan steeped in history and the site of the sculpture Triumph of the Human Spirit.
Kylie and I had just been there, all pumped up about getting the search warrant that would bring down Troy Marschand and Dylan Freemont. I’d barely taken note of my surroundings, but I vaguely remember that the air was crisp and clean, the traffic was flowing, and all was right with the world.
Now, less than an hour later, men and women in uniform were scrambling to set up barricades three hundred feet from the courthouse steps, where a lone man in a dark suit sat with a cell phone to his ear and a bomb chained to his wrist.
“We’re at the scene, Captain,” I said. “We’ve got cop cars, fire trucks, and media vans up the ass. Where the hell is the bomb squad?”
“Bay Ridge, Riverdale, Ozone Park, and Harlem. We got a rash of school bomb threats just before this one came in. I’m sure Segura is behind it, but we can’t take a chance until we evacuate every one of those kids and have the dogs canvass the buildings. The Emergency Service Unit is on the way, but right now, it’s on you.”
“The uniforms are working on crowd control. What do you want us to do?”
“Stay on this phone,” Cates said. “Nine one one will patch you into the conversation between Hirsch and Segura.”
“Patch…? Why?”
“Why the hell do you think, Jordan? You’ve been to Bangkok. You know the players better than anyone. This is your case. I want you to talk with Segura and keep him from detonating that bomb.”
Kylie looked at me and shook her head. She knew what I knew. Segura had spent half his lifetime planning for this moment. There was no way on earth he was going to settle for an apology and a couple of confessions. But that’s not what Cates wanted to hear.
“All right, Captain,” I said, opening the car door. “I’ll try my best.”
“There’s no trying on this one, Jordan,” she barked. “Suit up and get it done. This department and this mayor cannot afford another dead New York City millionaire on the front page of every paper in the country.”
I heard a click, and then I was listening to a man speaking. I recognized Nathan Hirsch right away.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” Hirsch said. “Who is this?”
“This is Detective Zach Jordan. I’d like to join this conversation.”
“Detective,” a second voice said. “Do you know who this is?”
“I do.”
“Nathan tells me you flew to Bangkok to pay me a visit.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So sorry I missed you,” he said. “Why don’t we catch up now?”
CHAPTER 51
“You’re quite the hero in Thailand,” I said. “I had dinner with Pongrit Juntasa, and he told me that Rom Ran Sura brought great honor to—”
“Rom Ran Sura is dead.”
“But I thought you were—”
“I am Geraldo Segura. It’s the name my Guatemalan parents gave me when I was born, and it will be my name when I die. Rom Ran Sura was part of the artifice, a tool I used to dig my way out of prison thirty years ahead of time.”
“Whatever your name is, you’re a Muay Thai legend.”
“There are no legends in hell. Except for Satan himself. You should be honored that he dined with you. I subsisted on a single bowl of rice in watered-down soup every day while Nathan got fatter and richer.”
“I know what you went through,” I said. “I visited Klong Prem. I saw the deplorable conditions you were subjected—”
“Will you shut the fuck up, Detective?” It was Nathan Hirsch. “What the hell are you doing on this phone call, anyway?”
“You have a bomb attached to your wrist, sir. I’m trying to negotiate a peaceful resolve to a volatile situation.”
“By agitating the man? By rehashing the life he just escaped from? Geraldo and I were having a meaningful discussion. We all make mistakes when we’re young. He and I were both seduced by Princeton Wells. Wells made the drug deal with Zoe Pound. Wells bought the heroin. And it was Wells who made sure that if we got caught, Geraldo would pay the price. My only crime was not mounting a campaign to free my friend.”
“Don’t be modest, Nathan,” Segura said. “That’s not your only crime. You’ve already admitted to several, and we were just getting started.”
“So I’m a lawyer who broke the law. They’ll disbar me. They’ll fine me. They’ll put me in jail. They’ll give me what I deserve. But I don’t deserve to die.”
“That’s exactly what I wanted to say to Mr. Segura,” I said.
“Do me a favor, Detective. Don’t say anything. Butt out.”
“I’m sorry, Detective Jordan,” Segura said. “It appears Nathan doesn’t want your help. But feel free to listen.”
I muted the phone as Hirsch launched into another mea culpa.
I scanned the street on the far side of the square. In the few minutes since I’d arrived, it had mushroomed into an armed camp packed with first respond
ers ready, willing, and able to take on whatever disaster befell their city.
Behind them were the media vans, gobbling up the human drama and spitting it out to cyberspace, the airwaves, and the printed page to satisfy the bloodlust of their loyal followers. Nathan Hirsch had woken up this morning with a head full of secrets. By nightfall, they would belong to the world.
Kylie came running toward me with a large pair of bolt cutters in her hand.
“If you’re thinking about cutting the chain to the briefcase, forget it,” I said. “Segura is watching from somewhere. If you get within a hundred feet of Nathan Hirsch, you’d better be wearing earplugs.”
“Zach, I know, I know, but listen to me. Remember what Howard Malley told us about the code name Interpol gave Flynn Samuels?”
“They call him Sammy Six Digits.”
“Right. He taps a six-digit date into his cell phone to detonate the bomb. Cell phone, Zach. Segura can’t blow up anything without a cell signal, and guess what they have on the ESU truck? A cell jammer.”
“And guess what NYPD can’t use without a warrant?” I said. “If you want to run across the street to the courthouse, maybe you can get one.”
“There’s no time for a goddamn warrant. This is a life-and-death situation.”
“How many thousands of people do you think live and work in this area? What if one of them has a life-and-death situation and can’t call 911 because you jammed the airwaves to save Nathan Hirsch? Kylie, cell jammers are like search warrants. Judges get to make the decision. Not cops.”
“Fine,” she said. “The bomb squad is ten minutes out. Maybe they can do something. How are you doing on your hostage negotiations?”
“I’m persona non grata. Nathan Hirsch doesn’t want my help. All I can do is listen.”
“Hold on to these,” she said, handing me the bolt cutters. “I know what Segura looks like. I’m going to work the crowd and see if I can spot him.”
Kylie took off, and I set the bolt cutters at my feet and put the phone to my ear. Nathan Hirsch had been wrong to tell me to butt out. I may not have been an experienced negotiator, but I wasn’t some random cop jumping on to the phone call. I knew a hell of a lot about Geraldo Segura. I hadn’t been agitating him. I’d been empathizing with him. Saying what I had to say to get him to trust me.