So did Sister Nan.
Danny, Kieran and Craig were left alone with the body. They could hear sirens approaching.
“I guess we don’t have time for you two to tell me just exactly what is going on right now,” Craig said. “But you’re going to, right?”
“Hey—I just tagged along!” Danny said, shaking his head.
Craig stared at Kieran. “A lot has happened,” she said quietly.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t see you,” Kieran reminded him evenly.
Touché. He was off digging—it seems she found something right on the surface.
The sirens were growing louder. He was going to need a reason to explain why he had called for an autopsy on a ninety-plus-year-old woman who looked as peaceful as a babe.
He could hear people at the entrance.
“I need something!” Craig demanded.
“Two illegal immigrants terrified of some man they call the King found me through Sister Teresa and the soup kitchen. They talked to me and then became convinced that someone was after them. They ran, telling me that they’d find me again through the nun. I came to tell Sister Teresa that they would be trying to reach me again through her,” Kieran said quickly. “And to see if she knew anything else.”
“And that’s when we all arrived,” Danny said.
There were voices at the entry and then the sounds of people coming through.
The very irate mother superior led the way like a bulldozer.
Two officers came behind and then—to Craig’s incredulity and gratification—Dr. Andrews.
“So...you think you can special request who looks after your bodies, hmm?” Andrews asked him softy. He looked up at the large wooden crucifix on the wall of Sister Teresa’s tiny room and moved his fingers over his chest in the sign of the cross.
He glanced at Craig and flushed. “Habit—um, sorry, no pun intended. Anyway...let me see what I can see here. Then we’ll get her moved.”
“She was ninetysomething, right? That’s what we were told,” one of the cops was saying to the mother superior.
“Yes,” the mother superior said, casting Craig a glare that would have melted stone.
He was actually tempted to smile. He didn’t allow himself to do so. He glanced at Kieran instead; she stood straight and still and silent at Danny’s side.
The officers looked over at Craig skeptically; they had been informed he was FBI.
Maybe taking his work just a little too seriously.
Then, in a moment almost as miraculous as Dr. Andrews having arrived, Richard Egan came striding into the room.
Craig could have kissed him.
He stepped forward. “Sir!” he said to Egan. “Officers...detectives? Mother Superior, if you will listen, you’ll understand.” He kept speaking, explaining that Sister Teresa, being the essence of goodness and kindness, had befriended two truly lost—and terrified—souls who had confided in her that they needed help. They’d then dared to reach out to Kieran Finnegan, but ran again in fear when they thought that their one-time captors were upon them. They had told Kieran to find the nun, and thus Kieran had come tonight to let Sister Teresa know that the women would be contacting her again.
Only to find her thus. And so, with the possibility that truly heinous and experienced killers might have come upon her, he was asking that her death be investigated.
“Perfect call, Special Agent Frasier,” Egan said. “Thank you. Dr. Andrews, if you will see to the dear woman.”
There was more talk and some confusion. The room was too small for everyone at once. Dr. Andrews performed his initial examination, and asked that Sister Teresa be brought to the morgue. Crime scene technicians arrived, further horrifying the mother superior.
Then Mike Dalton arrived—Craig had been busy, but Egan had seen to it that he had been brought up to speed. Mike had let everyone at Finnegan’s know what had happened, though all they really knew was that Kieran and Danny had arrived to find the elderly nun deceased, and so natural confusion and speculation followed.
It wasn’t until eleven that they finally returned to Finnegan’s. The pub closed early on Sundays, and it was almost empty when they arrived—other than for Mary Kathleen, Declan and Kevin, who were all waiting anxiously for them to arrive.
“Your roast is a wee bit dried out,” Mary Kathleen told Craig. “But I can try heating it.”
Craig realized that he hadn’t eaten. Of course, Mary Kathleen had spoken like that in a somewhat sharp tone because she didn’t want to sound worried.
Food was always a good cover.
“Dried out will be fine,” he assured her. “Mike?”
“Buddy, I already ate. I was hungry. And it was delicious,” Mike said apologetically.
“Mr. Egan,” Declan said, “if you’re here, I’m assuming that we’re having a meeting in the pub. Glad that we’re just about closed, sir, and you can have your choice of meeting space.”
“Excellent. I’m going to suggest that span of cocktail tables between the entry and the bar, Declan, sir—and that we all share everything gleaned today.”
“Yes, that will be very interesting,” Craig said, looking at Kieran.
“Indeed it will,” she shot back.
“One moment,” Mary Kathleen murmured, smiling brilliantly as she walked to the front door, saying good evening and locking the last customer out.
As he heard the bolts clicking, Craig turned to Kieran. “So this was all new today? You just met Sister Teresa today?”
“Of course not! I helped out yesterday. I just met the immigrant women today,” she said.
“Shall we sit?” Egan said firmly.
“Yes, please. I’ll bring the coffee and the cups,” Declan announced.
In a matter of minutes, they were all around the tables—Egan, Mike, Craig and the Finnegan crew: Kieran, Danny, Declan, Kevin and Mary Kathleen.
“I’m going to need the gaps filled in,” Egan said. “But since they’re going to come from two sides, let me get started with the story up to now.” He looked around the table with the steely gray look in his eyes that had surely helped get him into his position. “Someone is dealing in human trafficking. Now, we all pretty much can imagine how that works. Most of the time, you pay a scam artist a fortune, they get you into the country with promises of a better life, but once you’ve arrived—illegally—you’re at their mercy. Then they use you for slave labor, prostitution, or both, I’m assuming. They’re probably using people in drug deals and gambling operations, as well. Those who come from war-torn countries, who were on the wrong side, who maybe had some kind of even minor skirmish with the law in their country might be terrified of going back. I’m not sure how they’d control them. Usually drugs—probably threats. This situation has been going on for a long time. There was a murder five years ago—a woman who had just given birth was found bleeding to death in an alley in Brooklyn, where Craig and Mike spent most of the day.”
“The woman who gave me the baby was trying to save her from an illegal adoption,” Kieran said. “She wasn’t wrenched from her mother the moment she was born, though. I believe the baby is about three months old.”
“Maybe after they lost the young woman a few years back,” Craig said, “they’ve started making the babies be a bit older for adoption. Maybe it was an unusual case.”
“I don’t know about that,” Kieran said quietly. “I do know that the woman who was killed was brought to the States and turned into slave labor. I believe she loved a lot of the girls that she was forced to look after—and their babies. I know that her name was Alexandra Callas—”
“You know her name?” Craig demanded, startled, his voice rough. “Sorry,” he added quickly, but he was afraid that even his apology was rough.
Kieran was silent just a moment, and then she nodded
. “I know what the young women today told me. Or what the one told me. She is Irish and her name is Riley McDonnough. The other was Tanya—Tanya Petrofskya. Russian. They know the mother of the baby, too—Yulia Decebel, who is Romanian. They don’t know the name of the man running the whole thing, but he makes them call him the King. It is one man. They knew about the woman who died years ago,” she added. “Although, I believe that’s all they know. Riley hasn’t been in the United States that long. I’m not sure about Tanya. Her English is poor. And somehow Riley has learned enough Russian for the two of them to communicate, at any rate. The thing is, I was trying to get them to come in. They are really terrified. I don’t think that just one man can be running this whole thing, but there is a boss, or what have you—the man who they call King, or, sometimes, Riley told me, they even have to call him Your Majesty.”
“And now Sister Teresa has passed away,” Egan said. “Her passing tonight might, of course, be coincidence. Sad coincidence. I just looked up the dear lady a few moments back—she was ninety-six...four years short of a one hundredth birthday. We’ll see what Dr. Andrews discovers. That’s all beside the point.”
“These women saw you at the soup kitchen, right?” Craig asked. He hoped his voice sounded more normal.
“The soup kitchen is a very good place, and it shouldn’t be darkened by the likes of these people!” Mary Kathleen said.
“I always thought of the pub as a good place,” Declan said. “And that sure as hell didn’t stop criminals from meeting here—but, neither did it stop us from going on as we were. Lucky, of course,” he added, nodding toward Craig, “that the FBI was in on it.”
“Bad things happen in good places all the time,” Craig assured him. “And,” he added, glancing around the table, “good people do bad things because they think they’re doing the right thing or the right thing for the situation. That’s all beside the point. This time, we’re not letting go. The cops had a bad time when that poor girl was murdered in that Brooklyn warehouse—they hit some walls because they just didn’t have enough power behind them. Now, the FBI is in on it and there will be help from the US Marshals and Homeland Security, too. We won’t let these deaths—or this horrible example of man’s inhumanity to man—go on.”
“Kieran,” Egan said, “thanks to you, we have a great deal more to work with now.”
“Thanks to Mary Kathleen,” Kieran murmured.
“Ah, well, sister, no one wanted to come to me,” Mary Kathleen said. “They didn’t ask for anything—didn’t show themselves at all—until you came.”
“Just as the dead woman—Alexandra Callas—knew to come to you,” Craig said thoughtfully.
“It’s probably not that great a dilemma,” Mike said. “Kieran was in the news a while back, but she’s also been associated with the law and helping victims and other vulnerable people in distress.”
“What about you all?” Kieran demanded, turning to Craig.
“We’ve frozen the assets of a man we believe to be dead,” Craig told her. He looked at Egan and Egan nodded; he was free to share what they had discovered. Which wasn’t much.
Especially when compared with all the names Kieran had managed to acquire!
“We believe there’s an extensive network that’s been operating for quite some time. We are all but certain that the same man—this King—is head of it all. The whole operation is probably fairly large, and well funded, for this man to have gotten away with so much for so long. Anyone who looks as if they might speak at all probably winds up in the river. For this kind of enterprise, there have to be enforcers. Many levels of involvement. I believe that they’re bringing vulnerable young women in and then forcing them into prostitution. If they do become pregnant, the babies are sold in underground adoptions.”
“But, how many people would do that?” Kieran whispered. “Someone else’s baby—a baby stolen from the mother?”
“Kieran, no one is told, ‘Hey, I kidnapped an immigrant, held her prisoner, and made her give birth and, so, hey, cool, here you go, your perfect beautiful child,’” Craig said.
Kieran flushed. “Of course not, but wouldn’t they know something wasn’t quite right?” she asked in a whisper.
“They might know,” Egan said. “In their hearts, they might know. But the adoption process isn’t easy. For years, most Caucasian applicants wanted white infants—and there just weren’t enough to go around. And then, your whole life is checked out—background, income, all that. Legal adoption can be very intrusive—there are tons of older kids who need good homes, but people want infants. No baggage. Between red tape and supply and demand, it’s tough. People often have to travel abroad. When you want a baby badly enough, you’re probably willing to overlook a lot. They’re likely told that these babies were rescued from a foreign orphanage. The parents who might be receiving these babies want to believe that they’re making a better world for the infants, and that it’s all one big happy story.”
Mike reached across the table and took her hand. “Kieran, we’ve spoken with one of the officers—David Beard—who was originally on the case. His partner now is a young guy named Detective Holmes—”
“Detective Holmes?” Danny asked.
“As in...Sherlock Holmes?” Kevin asked skeptically.
“The dude’s first name is Randy, and I don’t guess you lie to become a cop, so his name is really Randy Holmes. But, that’s beside the point. He’s furious and avid about catching these guys and he’s among Brooklyn’s finest,” Mike said.
Kieran nodded. “That’s good to hear.”
“And we have a great undercover guy working in Brooklyn, too,” Craig said.
“From Major Crimes, we have Lance Kendall and now Larry McBride working with him,” Egan added. “We’re moving in the right direction. What we need now is...hell, we all need to call it a night and get some sleep.”
“But what about Riley McDonnough and Tanya Petrofskya?” Kieran asked.
“That’s a tough one,” Egan said quietly. “We can’t put their names or pictures out there, Kieran. We could lead the killers to them just as easily as we might find them ourselves.”
“So what do we do?” she asked. “Whether they—whoever ‘they’ are—killed Sister Teresa or not, she is dead. They won’t be able to come to her.”
“They knew her through the soup kitchen, just the same way they came to see you,” Craig reminded her.
“Yes, but they wouldn’t stay with me. They ran.”
“They will find a way,” Egan said.
“Or we’ll find their bodies,” she said morosely.
Craig didn’t correct her.
Neither did anyone else.
They all knew that it was possible.
* * *
Craig was quiet when they left Finnegan’s and headed for Kieran’s apartment.
He was aggravated with her—if not out-and-out furious.
She could always tell when he was the maddest—he was the quietest.
“You should just explode,” she said. “It’s not healthy to be so silent.”
The look he gave her, she was certain it would cause a hardened criminal to shiver.
She swallowed and tried again. “I don’t get it. I don’t understand why you’re so angry with me.”
“I love you,” he said simply.
“Yep, I can see it in your eyes!”
He didn’t respond.
“I didn’t do anything dangerous or anything—”
“What?”
It wasn’t exactly an explosion. It was a word stated so precisely with such vehemence that she paused and took a deep breath before she tried to speak again.
“I went to a soup kitchen!” Okay, so she was explosive. She shouted the words. She wanted to hit him—to thunder against him. To make him react.
He shook his head. “Yep. You just w
ent to a soup kitchen. And all this happened, and you didn’t think it was important to tell me right away.”
“Kind of like you—I was waiting for something to say!”
He remained quiet.
“Look, this is the truth, the absolute truth, I swear it. I went there with Mary Kathleen yesterday just to be helpful. Okay, so the nun came to me and suggested that I come back today—so I did. But, you have to believe me, I didn’t know anything. There was nothing to tell you.”
“Except that you might have been in danger there—since evidently, people do know you.”
“Craig, any of us can be in danger walking down the street. Look how they killed Alexandra Callas! These people have to be found and stopped. They’ve been at this for years. God alone knows how many people they might have killed and how many lives they might have destroyed.”
He let out a long breath and looked over at her. “Yes, I know.”
And, of course, he did.
She didn’t say anything more.
They reached her place at last, parked and headed up the steps. She still wanted to hit him. She didn’t, of course.
“They killed her. I know it,” she said quietly opening the door. “They got to her. Somehow. Yes, she was very, very old. But to die so suddenly—right now? No way!”
She was stunned when Craig suddenly grabbed her and backed her against the wall. His hands were on her shoulders. His eyes seemed to gleam like fires from hell.
“Don’t you ever put yourself purposely into danger again—and keep it from me on top of all else!”
“You do it all the time!”
“It’s different, and you know that! I can’t handle you being involved in this if you’re going to act irresponsibly!” he warned her.
And she did hit him; she slapped her palms on his chest, and then leaned against him and said, “It’s just such a mess, and I’m so sorry, and I cared for Sister Teresa so very much, and...”
“Kieran, this really bothers me.” He tried a smile and said, “Hey. Come on. I’m scared. And when I’m scared, well...”
She had to smile back at him. She sagged into him with a sigh.