Deadly Assets (3 page)

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.

[ ONE ]

Office of the Mayor, City Hall Room 215

1 Penn Square, 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.

Finley, pointing at the screen with his cell phone, went on: “I don't know how badly this is going to play out, but it's already absolutely disastrous. God only knows what that monster was going to do to that little girl. A kidnapped child—now that's a PR nightmare. A horror story that would have media legs forever. And if she were found dead . . . ?”

The image then switched to a live shot of JFK Plaza. Another reporter, this one a large-bosomed blonde in her late twenties, made a solemn face as she spoke into her microphone and gestured toward more yellow crime scene tape in the background.

“And this!” Finley said, pointing to the television again. “Right across the damn street”—he dramatically jabbed his free hand's index finger in the direction of the park—“a beautiful young woman's life tragically cut short . . .” He stopped when he realized the word he'd used. “Tragically
ended
, I should say.”

Finley held his cell phone at shoulder level, waving it as he went on: “Both of the stories are being spread all over social media with the key phrase ‘Stop Killadelphia.' I can't repeat the disgusting things people are saying about us. Especially after what that poor girl had just posted—‘My Love in the City of Brotherly Love' with a beautiful romantic picture—before being murdered in broad daylight! For christsake, it's
Christmas
! What is wrong with these people?”

Mayor Carlucci, looking at the city's new public relations head, thought,
Finley's not suggesting there's a better time for murdering someone?

But I guess he does have a point.

He can be a real pain in the ass, but Stein swears he's clever as hell and apparently good at what he does.

Not that that matters to the families of the dead kids.

The mayor then wondered how much of Finley's dramatics could be attributed to genuine emotion—his hysterical fits already bordered on legendary—or be blamed on alcohol, or both. Finley had announced that he had been enjoying brunch with friends just blocks away in his Washington Square West neighborhood, with plans to walk the shops along Walnut Street for Christmas gifts afterward, when the news broke.

“Our new tourism campaign, well, this is just going to kill it.” Finley paused again. “Oh, damn it, I'm so upset I cannot think or speak properly. And it's my job to use the proper words.” He gestured at the television once more. “This is going to
scare off
countless people. Look at this crime scene tape next to one of our most popular tourist attractions. Who wants to celebrate where someone's been murdered? Or become the next murder victim? This insanity keeps getting worse.”

The room was quiet for a long moment.

“He is right, Mr. Mayor,” Ed Stein said, looking up from his legal pad and tapping it with his pen. He wore a well-cut conservative gray two-piece suit with a white dress shirt and a striped blue necktie. “It is worse. For starters, we're now at three hundred sixty-two killings for the year. Four more than last year's total, and it would appear racing for an all-time record.”

Carlucci met his eyes. Stein, who had proved to be both exceptionally sharp and a voice of reason, was starting to grow on him. But the mayor damn sure did not always like what Stein had to say.

Stein picked up on that and shrugged, adding: “It's why I'm here. It's why we're all here.”

[ TWO ]

While Edward Stein and James Finley were officially listed as being executives on the City of Philadelphia's payroll, they fell under a unique provision of the law. The mayor, at his discretion, was permitted to have as many staff members as he deemed necessary for the good of the city—as long as the total of their salaries and pension liabilities did not exceed that of his office's budget for personnel. To that end, Stein and Finley were each receiving a city payroll check once a year in the amount of $1.

Their real income, not including bonuses and stock options, was in the middle six figures—as appropriate for their level as senior vice presidents of a major corporation—and was paid by Richard Saunders Holdings, which had its headquarters at North Third and Arch Streets in Old City.

Thus, the reality of it was that they were on loan to the city by local businessman Francis Franklin Fuller V.

The forty-five-year-old Fuller traced his family lineage to Benjamin Franklin. He enthusiastically embraced everything that was Franklinite, starting with “Richard Saunders,” the pen name Franklin used in writing
Poor Richard's Almanack
. Fuller even physically resembled his ancestor. He was short and stout and had a bit of a bulging belly. Tiny round reading glasses accented his bulbous nose and round face.

Fuller had been born into wealth, and had built that into a far larger personal fortune, one in excess of two billion dollars. Under his main company, Richard Saunders Holdings, he owned outright or had majority interest in KeyCargo Import-Exports (the largest user of the Port of Philadelphia docks and warehousing facilities), KeyProperties (luxury high-rise office and residential buildings), and the crown jewel, KeyCom, a Fortune 500 nationwide telecommunications corporation.

His Old City headquarters also housed a nonprofit organization that he funded. A devout believer in the Bible's “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” Fuller chose the name Lex Talionis, which came from the Latin phrase for “Law of Talion” and essentially translated as “an eye for an eye.”

Tragedy had struck Fuller's family five years earlier. His wife and young daughter, after making wrong turns and driving their Mercedes-Benz convertible into North Philadelphia West, had become collateral damage, killed in a hail of buckshot from the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. The gunmen were never caught.

A frustrated Fuller responded by setting up Lex Talionis and endowing it with an initial five million dollars. Every Friday—“Payday Friday,” Fuller came to call it—he ran advertisements in local media and all his KeyCom cable channels: “Lex Talionis will reward twenty thousand dollars cash to any individual who provides information that leads to the arrest, conviction, and/or removal from free society of a criminal guilty of murder or attempted murder, rape or other sexually deviant crime, or illicit drug distribution in the City of Philadelphia. Tipsters are provided a unique code to keep them anonymous. Lex Talionis works with the Philadelphia Police Department and courts to protect the identities of those providing the information, ensuring their anonymity.”

Carlucci had not liked it—in large part because it had been almost immediately effective, and thus embarrassed the leader of the East Coast's second-largest city. At any given time, Philly had approximately fifty thousand criminals “in the wind”—robbers, rapists, junkies, and other offenders who'd jumped bail by ignoring their court date. They then became wanted on outstanding warrants. While some had fled the city, many remained. And when Fuller put a bounty on their heads, the fugitives—either dead or bound and gagged in some makeshift manner—were being dropped at the doorstep of Lex Talionis, and the rewards were promptly being paid.

It wasn't that Carlucci didn't want the criminals behind bars—or, in the case of known killers, in a grave. What the longtime law enforcement professional didn't like was that the cash reward caused civilians to take the law into their own hands.

Carlucci had to use his iron fist—declaring that anyone who did not include the police department in apprehending the criminals would themselves be arrested and prosecuted, and then did so—while at the same time carefully bringing Lex Talionis more or less under the purview of the police department.

Shortly thereafter, Fuller, uninvited, had appeared at Carlucci's office.

—

You arrogant sonofabitch!
Carlucci thought as he watched Fuller push past the mayor's secretary and then wave her off.
The last thing I want to do is make nice with you.

“No interruptions, please,” Fuller said to the secretary as he closed the office door behind him.

He turned and looked at Carlucci.

“Jerry, I have two words for you.”

Carlucci was on his feet and coming out from behind his desk with his right hand outstretched.

“Frank, to what do I owe the pleasure of this surprise?”

“Hold the bullshit,” Fuller said, sticking his hand up, palm out. “I've got a busy day.”

Fuller then gestured with the same hand for Carlucci to take his seat. Fuller settled onto the couch.

“This is my office, Frank,” Carlucci said, coldly furious.

“Please,” Fuller replied evenly, and gestured again.

Carlucci made an angry face, then found his chair while impatiently gesturing back
Let's have it
with his hand. “Okay. Two words.”

“Detroit and reelection.”

Carlucci cocked his head. “What the hell does that mean? I don't know much, nor give a good goddamn, about Detroit politics.”

“Well, as Benjamin Franklin said . . .” He paused. “I'm sure you recall that I am a descendant of the wise patriot. He said, ‘When the well's dry, we know the worth of the water.' And we all would be wise to learn from Detroit's dry well.”

“I'm not sure I follow you, Frank. Not sure I want to.”

Fuller nodded, then explained, “Being a product of this great city, it pains me that Philadelphia has such genuinely grave problems. There is the very real chance that it is on that proverbial slippery slope to becoming the next Detroit.”

Carlucci grunted. “You mean bankrupt? That's not going to happen.”

“That's what I would expect a politician, particularly one in your position, to say. That's what they all said about Detroit. No one believed, or certainly wanted to believe, that that city would go broke. After all, it was home to the giants of the automobile manufacturers, including General Motors Corporation. Remember what they said about that powerful global corporation? ‘As goes GM, so goes the nation.' And then what? Boom to bust, that's what. It went bankrupt. And then the city went bankrupt.”

Carlucci grunted again. “We're not Detroit. We have thriving universities and leading hospitals and more.”

“Again, spoken like a politician, but as great as our ‘Eds and Meds' are—and they are indeed first class—they cannot sustain the entire city. Philadelphia, as you know, in addition to being
the birthplace
of this great nation, was known as the Workshop of the World. We made everything for everyone, locomotives to warships, textiles to firearms. Today, that's all gone, leaving vast lots and deserted crumbling buildings in once-thriving neighborhoods like Kensington and Frankford and empty docks at the Navy Yard.”

He let that sink in, then went on, his voice rising: “Our city—third poorest in the country—has a great many challenges that can no longer be ignored, Jerry. We cannot afford to go bankrupt. I will not let it. I have too much invested in this city, both emotionally and certainly financially. It is our moral obligation to leave, as our ancestors did, the city better than we found it. Which brings me to reelection.”

“The primaries are more than a year out—”

“I am well aware of that,” Fuller interrupted. “Allow me, please, to finish. I'm also aware that there already are plenty of people planning on gunning for you, if you will forgive my choice of words. And they have ample ammunition. Crime being of course a significant issue with our citizens. I would suggest it is the main issue. The murder rate would be worse were it not for our excellent hospitals—specifically trauma surgeons performing miracles. It's a war zone out there, Jerry! And I speak from personal experience”—he suddenly dropped his head forward to rub his eyes, and then cleared his throat, and almost in a mumble added—“as you know.”