Classified

By G. T. Engelke

Detective William H. Ryan leads the detective squad that is placed on the front lines to solve high visibility multiple murders. Murders that involve the excessive use of phlebotomy, the practice of opening one's veins to draw out the blood, and truculent and sexual torture. Their investigation and search intertwine and draw members of Ryan's family, organized crime, and the love of his life into the fray. The killer is smart, rich, and immutable in his quest to satisfy his unquenchable desire to kill and enjoy the pain and suffering he inflicts. Detective William H. Ryan is drawn, pulled, pushed and driven through levels of emotion that he never believed existed. His skills, abilities, and multiple avenues of information gathering are stretched to their limits.

The involvement, and the unknown inter-workings, of organized crime interwoven with the hard-working Detective Division of a big city police force, offer some level of understanding of the complexities of finding the guilty. They all are striving to reach this one goal, with different conclusions in mind, and in their efforts offer some insight into the complex worlds that one must pass through to attain this goal.

The investigation of all that confronts Detective Ryan takes one through many strange twists and turns and visits many dark places. Places that only excessive emotion can create, and/or cause to develop, places that are sometimes better left unvisited, investigated or disturbed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 25, 2000
• ISBN: 9781496921802

G. T. Engelke

Gilbert T. Engelke Jr. was born in New York, New York, and now lives in Savannah, Georgia with his wife, Janet. He has a degree in engineering, and served in Vietnam with the U. S. Army, as a Combat Medical Specialist from 1966 through 1968. He is a life member of the Disabled American Veterans Organization, and a member of the DAV, VFW, and American Legion. He enjoys the outdoor sports of golfing and fishing and the inside activities of darts, reading, writing, and spending time with Janet, and their Hound mix, Al and their Pug, Kim.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Lt. William Harold Ryan stepped out of his black on black, no chrome, no looks, no class, department provided, 96 Crown Victoria and stretched his arms skyward. It never changes 5:30 AM is always 5:30 AM, and his body still lets him know that it would have enjoyed a few more hours of sleep.

Well, Billy Boy, what do you think today will bring? He asked himself as he felt the muscles in his back resisting the stretching and felt them protesting it as well.

The one thing about being a Homicide Detective was that it was never dull. In the past years he had seen the worst that humanity could do to itself.

I guess that is what keeps me young, he thought, as he turned toward the curb and started walking towards the main entrance of the Precinct House. Nineteen years of service, with the last ten years having been spent walking through the doors that he now approached.

The entrance was framed with sandstone with diamonds of brick, in an alternating pattern, that gave the appearance of a much larger and impressive passageway. The Precinct House is a three-story townhouse that, in its hey day, had been a very desirable residence. The previous owner had fallen on hard times during the stock market crash and lost the building to back taxes.

Once through the front door and the entrance foyer a center staircase stands directly ahead, rising and turning up to levels two and three. Each of the floors held a five-room suite that branched off the center hallway, on each side of the staircase, starting with a large sitting room. And from the sitting rooms, short hallways that extend to the remaining four rooms. The smaller rooms were placed at the end of the hallways in a way that extended each away from the center core like a spoke on a wheel. Each of the suites had been impressive in its own way, each having its design based on the best era of each of the countries represented. The eras of early English and German times were represented with all of the accent rugs, furniture, lamps, and art, to complete the re-creation of times gone by.

The first thing that had gone was the furniture and accent pieces, and then the home itself fell to default. The city held the property for years, abandoned and empty, with no residents except the rats and occasional drug addict or bum. The thought to use the property as a Precinct House only came about because of the extreme increase in the crime rate. It was also driven by the increase of the drug-related incidents that plagued the neighborhood.

The continued outcry from the residents, to the mayor’s office, had gotten the Precinct opened and it became permanent three years later.

Ryan pulled open the door and strode across the entrance foyer towards the staircase, passing the large desk that stood just to the right of the entrance. All activity going into or out of the house had to pass that desk and the Sergeant that manned it.

Good morning Lt. Ryan, how they hanging this fine day? Sergeant Jackson asked with a big smile on his face. Jackson looked like he should have been a football lineman instead of a policeman. The man stood well over six-feet tall, was a least three feet wide, and weighed in at three ten. The biggest concern that he had was if the Department could still find uniforms large enough to fit him.

He was like a fixture at the front desk; Ryan could not find anyone that remembered any other Desk Sergeant in the Precinct House.

As well as can be expected, when you’re as old as salt and not as useful, Ryan quipped back without a second’s pause.

Good one Lieutenant, Good one, damn your quick and with less then 10 percent of us awake, Jackson laughed at the humor. Oh, by the way Lieutenant, central called and said your cousin called late yesterday and said that he would get in touch with you later today.

Great, did you get a name?

No, Sorry, I keep forgetting who it is they’re calling for, you got more family than anyone that I know or even heard of, Jackson said, with an even bigger smile spread across his face.

No big shakes, if it’s important enough they’ll call back, thanks Sarge.

Lt. Ryan walked past the Sergeant’s desk to the stairs and took them two at a time on his way up to his office on the second floor. A message like that always made Ryan laugh to himself. He had well over five hundred cousins in the five counties of New York. They were of every age from much younger to much older. His grandparents had been good Roman Catholic Sicilians that had thirteen children from twenty-two to fifty-four. His grandmother had been one of seven children and his grandfather one of eight. With all of them living within one hundred miles of each other and their original parental homes.

They were just like the UN with all of the marriages that had occurred over the years. They now had all nationalities in the mix of in-laws and out-laws which formed the group that comprised the family. He had cousins that worked in every department of the city government as well as Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, Stockbrokers and just about any other career you might mention. Some family members were rich but most were middle class, and there were even a few poor, but all a part of the family and none more important then the next. Some worked on the right side of the law and others bridged that gap between good and bad. These honored a much older tradition then conventional law and order. It was sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing to have so many eyes and ears everywhere.

Ryan was still considered the leader of the group that consisted of twenty or so cousins that grew up close, real close. Protection of the public family image was and would always be his responsibility. It was a responsibility that he had grown into without any conscious decision on his part. He always followed the belief that honoring your family was the only way to live one’s life. It was well known that William H. Ryan would go to any length to protect any family member’s honor and would take a stand anywhere at any time if he felt he was right. Growing up on the streets, he had gained a reputation of someone to fear if you crossed him or a member of his family. His actions, as a child growing up, that this roll had required him to take, were a natural lead into police work. It was police work, or be work, for the police and the latter didn’t offer too much of a career path.

He entered the first doorway to the right, off the staircase, and walked past the desk of the pert redhead, Kelly, who was the current secretary or whatever they were now called. She should be in, in a few hours, he thought to himself. His age sometimes showed in the strangest ways, at least to him they were strange, if not strange, maybe weird was a better word. He still expected people to care about what they had to do, and not just when the next break was, or when they could go home. Extra effort was a thing quickly disappearing from the workplace and the continued change in personnel was the ruler he used to measure this fact. This secretary was the third in as many months, even though she had lasted six of the twelve weeks.

His desk was in the small room that previously served as the sitting room for the formal bedroom, but that was in a different era. The desk was standard city issue, gray painted steel, old, chipped, banged, dented, and in need of replacement. The desk was placed so that it faced the small window that over-looked the brick wall of the adjoining building. That building was built twenty years ago to replace the gardens and fountain that were no longer practical, and produced no income revenue for the owner of the property at that time. So much for progress.

He picked up a stack of reports, as he sat down, that seem to appear and grow out of nowhere each day, no matter how fast he processed them. The first report was on a robbery case that had been recently closed, after two years of inactivity, due to information that was uncovered in the investigation of a totally unrelated case. This happens some times when the old case is one that had been handled by one of the officers that is involved in the new case. The report wrapped up the last of the loose ends that were required to mothball a file for good.

The second report was a preliminary sheet, called a ‘Five’, that gets filled out when a call is received and has whatever details the person catching the call gleans in the first few moments of conversation. This one was on a case that had only been called in a few hours before he arrived and Ryan was sure that the body at the crime scene was not even cold. He also knew that this was where the duty crew of detectives must be and why the office was empty. This also told him that it must be pretty bad for all of them to have gone out at once.

White female, 30 to 35, found dead; death by unusual circumstances, the caller kept saying So much blood, so much blood over and over.

Call received from: This space was marked Unknown

Time received 2:18 a.m.

The rest of the report was blank, he knew that by the end of the shift, the file would be a half-inch thick with interviews, observations, facts and conjecture, and by tomorrow it would be two-inches thick with more of the same.

Just as he was reaching for the next file lying on his desk, the phone beeped its double tone; it sounded like it belonged to a kid’s toy, not a phone. Damn, I sure miss the ringing bell of a real telephone, Billy said to himself as he put the receiver to his ear.

He answered, Ryan, Homicide.

Lou, It’s Graves, can you get over here, this is something that you have to see to believe, we’re at sixty-eighth and Lex, ninth floor, apartment B.

Ok, It will be a few; I’m on the way. He rose and headed for the doorway to the staircase.

It must really be something if Graves called him out, he thought to himself as he descended the stairs.

Graves had been in Homicide for over sixteen years and not much surprised him.

That was quick Lieutenant, Jackson said, as Ryan reached the bottom step of the staircase.

Yep, things happen faster, the older you get, if they happen at all.

The Sergeant grinned and called after him as he went out the door. Good, very good and quick, too, then laughed at his own pun.

Ryan got in his car, popped the flashing light on the roof and headed to the crime scene with the siren screaming. It took him less then twenty minutes to reach the address of the crime scene. Sirens sure cleared things quickly, even in city traffic. The fact that it was not yet six a.m. also helped.

The area was surrounded with blue and white police cars and yellow tape that was printed with large black letters that announce, CRIME SCENE-DO NOT ENTER, over and over down the length of the tape. The tape was stretched from the corners of the adjoining buildings on each side of the crime scene. It also was draped across the front of the parking meters that lined the street in front of both buildings. He walked toward the door of the building that had four uniforms standing in front of it, each looking a little ill, and with a look of disbelief on their faces. They turned toward him as he approached, and nodded their acknowledgement and one of them said, Detective Graves is up stairs Lou and its bad, real bad. The rest of the squad is canvassing the surrounding buildings, lots of people upset about getting rousted so early.

Thanks for the snapshot. Too bad about the early, he said as he walked in the door and moved to the elevator. The door was being held open by another uniform and he also looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.

It’s on nine, apartment B, Sir.

Right, Ryan punched the button for the ninth floor and watched the door close on the face of the young uniform, and he swore that it looked like a wash of relief was covering that face, just knowing that the elevator was going up and he was not.

Damn, what in the hell can this be about? I haven’t seen this much of a reaction by so many ever before.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened, he could see a door open to his left and Det. Graves was standing just outside of it, looking quite ill himself. He had turned at the sound of the elevator doors; Hey Lou, am I glad to see you.

What has the rest of the squad reported? And why does everyone look like they just saw his or her first DOA? Ryan asked, with a little uneasiness causing it to sound curt.

Sorry Lou, but this is a first for me. I’ve seen bad before, but this is a step above and beyond anything I’ve seen. That’s why I called you. The rest of the squad is out gathering anything that they can, this is going to be a bitch, a real bitch.

OK, enough of that crap, what do we have, show me, Ryan said as he stepped through the door. The first thing that struck him was the appearance of everything being covered with the tinge of red, blood red. The sight caused the rusty taste, like when you cut your tongue in a game or fight, to form in his mouth. It was a taste he had hoped that he had seen and tasted the last of, at least for awhile anyway.

Shit, the air itself seems to be blood red! He thought.

Graves stepped past him saying, This way Lou, and then led the way into the kitchen area and he stopped, turning towards Ryan as he entered the room. Like I said, it’s bad.

Good Lord, What the hell happened in here?

The words came out spoken to no one, spoken to anyone, without an answer expected or requested. That was because Ryan did not even know that he had spoken them aloud.

The site before him was truly beyond belief; the body of the woman was spread eagle in the center of the room. Her hands and feet appeared to be nailed to the floor with large spikes, the kind that were used for securing landscaping timbers, a half-inch thick and twelve inches long.

Her body was cut open from her throat to her groin, down both legs and down both arms. The cut’s edges were razor sharp and clean and being held open by what looked like wire, bent in a zigzag, with each bend about one inch long. There also was one and a half-inch to two inch cuts along side the larger cuts on the breasts and side of the neck area that were visible. There was a large hole in the center of her chest, at least eight inches by eight inches.

Ryan looked at Graves and Graves pointed to the counter and the blender that stood in a pool of blood with some residue of whatever was blended still in it.

Next to the blender stood a—Bloody Glass!

My God! A Glass. Ryan’s mind froze for an instant, a glass, and I thought I’d seen it all.

It appears that the perpetrator somehow knocked her unconscious or killed her quickly and quietly and then cut her up. Might have cut out her heart or liver or something. Then put it in the blender, hit liquefy, and then drank the result. I get that from the apparent lip prints on the glass and the bloody finger marks on the buttons. There is also something done to her eyes, they look strange. The son of a bitch must think he’s Rembrandt or something. It appears that a wash rag was used to soak the blood out of the body cavity. Then it was used to paint everything with it that could be reached before the blood ran out, even the window glass. That’s why everything seems to be tinted red, it’s a bitch, Lou, a real bitch. Sorry if I sound like a rookie, but I ain’t never seen anything like this before, never. I called for the Medical Examiner over two hours ago and no response yet, great support, huh.

The Medical Examiner is backed up but I’m sure that they’ll get someone over here as soon as they can, Ryan responded to the dig. He did not like any cheap shots at the ME.

Graves gave Ryan a surprised look and continued, I’ve got the rest of our squad doing door to doors and interviewing everyone on the street that could have seen the front door of this building over the past twelve hours. We may get lucky and find someone that saw a stranger leave the building. Right now all we have is the anonymous caller. The back door has a welded gate across it; you couldn’t open it if you had to. I’m sure the fire inspector missed that during his last inspection, Graves said with a smirk on his face.

He knew that there was a good chance there hadn’t been an on-site inspection of 90% of the buildings in the city for over twenty years. The checks and cash got mailed in with the inspection requests and the approval documents went out in the next day’s mail.

We’ve got a real sick son-of-a-bitch this time Lou, the Crime Scene group hasn’t gotten here yet but I have been looking around real careful-like and I haven’t been able to find a print, other then the smudges on the blender. Almost all of the blood is dry, so my guess is that it happened around ten o-clock last night. The only thing that seems out of place is a ladies makeup table with a mirror and chair sitting in the living room. You know, one of those small things that look like they’ll break if a guy sits on them, you know frail-like.

Oh yes, I know what you mean, well not for us to question a person’s home decorating. We have bigger things to concern ourselves with. OK, get all the legwork done and keep the crime scene closed up tight until the ME gets here and don’t let any press get in here. I’ll see you back at the House, I’ve got to get to the Chief and let him know what the skinny is on this one. If this gets out wrong it will stink for a long time.

Ryan turned and walked out, without waiting for a response of any kind, he wanted to put some space between himself and this place and quick. He could not remember being affected this much by any crime scene before. He too had seen bad, but Graves was right, this was ugly bad.

CHAPTER TWO

At 2:45 p.m., Ryan pulled up to the front of the building that housed the offices of the Medical Examiner and the City Morgue; he pulled into one of the parking space marked, Official Use Only. He noticed that there were only three other vehicles in the lot, and two of those were city pukes like the one that he was driving. The other was a VW It; at least that is what he thought they called the boxy yellow thing parked in the last space.

The ME was to do the autopsy at 3:00 p.m., on the homicide victim from the case now being called The Rembrandt Killings, thanks to the leak by one of his own, about the painting of everything at the crime scene with blood, to the press. Even with it being an accident it did not say much for the squad, to others in the force.

This is one of my least favorite places, he thought, and it’s where one of my most favorite people to see and hear works. He grinned and shook his head as he got out of his car, taking care not to hit the car in the next space with his door. He caught himself placing his hand on the edge of the door to keep it from hitting the other car, Damn like another dent would matter to this heap, he thought looking at the side of the Ford. It had more dings and dents then a run over beer can on the Cross-Island Expressway, he closed the door with a laugh.

A mental snapshot of Medical Examiner, Rebecca Ann Heary, popped into his head as he approached the front doors of the building. Brown hair with golden highlights, shoulder length with a shag cut, crystal clear gray eyes that changed color with each and every mood or emotion change and with a sparkle that danced with the start of each and every smile. A smattering of color that lightened or darkened again based on mood, on each cheek and the warmest smile that he had ever had the joy of having bestowed upon him. A smile that was ever present when she was not up to her elbows, in somebody or something, working.

Damn, it’s a shame that she is so young, so damn young, he thought. That was the reason he never had the nerve to get past the professional stage of their interface. It was due to his perception of their age difference being much too great.

Ryan had joined the force at twenty-three and now with nineteen hard years behind him. He felt and acted much older then the forty-two that he really was. The job had aged him, in his mind at least, to where he felt and acted like someone in their mid to late fifties.

Dr. Rebecca Ann Heary was only twenty-six years old and to Ryan she seemed younger, much younger. What could an almost used up flatfoot offer a young, beautiful, smart, charming, captivating young woman? Not a damn thing, he thought to himself for the thousandth time. Ryan shook his head and called himself an old fool for the tenth or twentieth time since pulling into the parking lot and his thoughts of Rebecca.

He pushed open the door and entered the building. The inside of the building was just as in need of repair and refurbishing, as all of the other city owned buildings, with their peeling paint and worn-out plumbing. They all, for the most part, were built seventy to eighty years ago and with the ever-present budget problems, maintenance and upkeep was always the first thing to go. ‘If it isn’t totally broke don’t fix it,’ the motto of the City Buildings and Grounds Department.

Ryan walked down the two flights of steps it took to get to the morgue, and entered the office door marked, City Medical Examiner/Morgue. He noticed the broken lock in the doorknob and the piece of chain with a padlock wound around the banister.

Well, I guess they don’t fix what’s broke either, he thought to himself.

There was no one in the outer office, but Ryan could see two people moving around in the next room through the viewing window. He was sure that the blinds had been left open so that the workers could see if anyone entered.

This was the window that was used when a family was brought in to identify a John or Jane Doe. The window was fitted tightly with blinds that were opened when a knock on the window signaled that the people present were ready. Ready for the shock of possibly seeing a missing family member stretched-out on a white and cold impersonal slab.

Waiting for their sobbing cry identifying, Oh my God that’s him or her or a relieved cry of, I don’t know that person, that’s not my son or daughter or wife or husband. And then the tears of relief, just before the realization that their missing person was still just that, still missing, and the tears turn to those of fear and loss. It was amazing how a mere set of blinds could set off so many different sets of emotions and/or fears. Just one little pull of a simple cotton cord, and they began, huge swings of apprehension, to fear, to sadness, to happiness, and back to apprehension again.

Yes. Just a simple cotton cord and a single gentle tug.

Ryan had learned somewhere along the way that many things in life started with something small and unimportant. He had seen where some of these small and unimportant things grew in a flash, to matters of life and death, happiness or sadness, success or failure. Just small and unimportant things, shit, there were no small and unimportant things, Ryan now knew and believed. Everything, no matter how small or unassuming caused some other action or event that could change your life forever.

Rebecca looked up an saw Ryan standing in the outer office, she raised her hand in a wave, not realizing that she still held the kidney she had just removed from the cadaver that she was finishing up with. She looked up at the kidney, rolled her eyes upwards and shrugged her shoulders, giving Ryan a smile that said, Sorry. She put the kidney down and gave him the wait a minute signal with her hand and index finger. He smiled back and then pulled one of the chairs away from the wall and turned it around, sitting on it with the back of the chair in front of him, his arms on the top of the chair back. He was facing the window and had a clear view of the operating room, and of Rebecca, as she completed her work on the body.

Ryan blanked out all of what was before him, all but Rebecca, he was almost mesmerized, the overhead light reflected on, through and around her hair, giving it a soft golden glow. The determined look on her face, as she went along doing her work, could not detract from the startling beauty that Ryan saw, felt and embraced in his thoughts. Ryan smiled inwardly each and every time that the corner