Read Online Dead Silence by Randy Wayne White - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Randy Wayne White
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I dragged you in to this, Doc. I’m like poison lately. I hurt everyone I touch.”
The woman thought I was being kind when I replied, “I can empathize. But it’s not true of you.”
An FBI agent and a uniformed NYPD captain were in the operations suite when Barbara led me in. I had interrupted a briefing. Barbara’s staff was seated around the room, heads down. Phones had been muted but message lights pulsed at random on each desk.
There is a airless quality to a room filled with people in shock, a pheromone tension that depletes oxygen and leaches sweat. Small sounds echo. A cough is an occasional mask of the unchecked sob. Airports have a designated room. This room at the Waldorf was too richly lighted for the dark space it had become.
Hooker stood in the back, his expression attentive, not somber—a man accustomed to conflict. He nodded at me, then used his eyes to steer my attention to a computer.
On the screen was a photo of the teenage boy, Will Chaser. His abductors had used a flash. The black background was a garbage bag, possibly in the trunk of a car. His mouth was taped, cheeks inflated, and his brown eyes bulged as if surprised by the sudden light. They’d just removed his blindfold.
It was a close-up, head and shoulders. The pearl buttons of his western shirt matched the boots and cowboy hat I’d seen earlier. So did the untanned line on his forehead where black hair spilled over, thick as a brush. Because the boy’s chin was thrust forward, I guessed his hands were taped behind his back.
Looking at the photo, the image of Bern Heller sparked behind my eyes, then dissipated due to clinical indifference. In the Darwinian paradigm, a self-culling mechanism is requisite.
The image was replaced by the face of Will Chaser, the country boy newly arrived in the big city, all polished and brushed. I’d been amused by his tough guy posturing. “A goat ever kicked your ass, mister?” He’d said that when I’d hollered, “Kid!” Just off the plane, a teen who’d been miniaturized by skyscrapers, atomized by crowds, reduced to a speck, but he still had enough Oklahoma grit on his boots to fire back at a stranger.
No more tough-guy attitude. Not now. Adults go into shock when taped, gagged and blindfolded. This was a small-town boy. In the photo, he looked helpless as an infant.
As I followed Barbara across the room, the police captain, a woman named Tiffany Denzler, frowned her disapproval, saying, “Another outsider, Senator? This briefing was intended to be confidential.”
Hooker and I, the outsiders. Or maybe she meant staff, too. The captain had a point. Any of us could have ties with the bad guys.
Turning to the FBI agent, Denzler added, “I wouldn’t allow it, normally. I’m not sure I’m going to allow it tonight,” her tone less differential, her body language letting the room know that she was in charge—a bird-sized woman claiming more space, the way she stood, elbows out, hands on her familiar gun belt where there was a 9mm Glock, right side, in a speed holster.
The cop’s attitude changed when Barbara released my arm, saying, “Captain, were you sent to make decisions? You’re here to follow orders, that’s my understanding.”
“If that’s your understanding, Senator, I’m not going to burst your bubble—”
“A wise choice, Captain Denzler. You would disappoint the police commissioner and the head of your NYPD Captains Union—they’ve been very supportive in our phone conferences. The commissioner spoke well of you.”
Denzler cleared her throat. “Senator Hayes-Sorrento, if you expect us to find these people we can’t share information with every out-of-town visitor who happens to be in the neighborhood—”
“Visitors, Captain? How many of the kidnappers do you have in custody?”
Denzler said, “Pardon me, Senator?,” to give herself a second before she answered, “I have one suspect in custody. He hasn’t been charged yet because—”
“He’s
The woman thought I was being kind when I replied, “I can empathize. But it’s not true of you.”
An FBI agent and a uniformed NYPD captain were in the operations suite when Barbara led me in. I had interrupted a briefing. Barbara’s staff was seated around the room, heads down. Phones had been muted but message lights pulsed at random on each desk.
There is a airless quality to a room filled with people in shock, a pheromone tension that depletes oxygen and leaches sweat. Small sounds echo. A cough is an occasional mask of the unchecked sob. Airports have a designated room. This room at the Waldorf was too richly lighted for the dark space it had become.
Hooker stood in the back, his expression attentive, not somber—a man accustomed to conflict. He nodded at me, then used his eyes to steer my attention to a computer.
On the screen was a photo of the teenage boy, Will Chaser. His abductors had used a flash. The black background was a garbage bag, possibly in the trunk of a car. His mouth was taped, cheeks inflated, and his brown eyes bulged as if surprised by the sudden light. They’d just removed his blindfold.
It was a close-up, head and shoulders. The pearl buttons of his western shirt matched the boots and cowboy hat I’d seen earlier. So did the untanned line on his forehead where black hair spilled over, thick as a brush. Because the boy’s chin was thrust forward, I guessed his hands were taped behind his back.
Looking at the photo, the image of Bern Heller sparked behind my eyes, then dissipated due to clinical indifference. In the Darwinian paradigm, a self-culling mechanism is requisite.
The image was replaced by the face of Will Chaser, the country boy newly arrived in the big city, all polished and brushed. I’d been amused by his tough guy posturing. “A goat ever kicked your ass, mister?” He’d said that when I’d hollered, “Kid!” Just off the plane, a teen who’d been miniaturized by skyscrapers, atomized by crowds, reduced to a speck, but he still had enough Oklahoma grit on his boots to fire back at a stranger.
No more tough-guy attitude. Not now. Adults go into shock when taped, gagged and blindfolded. This was a small-town boy. In the photo, he looked helpless as an infant.
As I followed Barbara across the room, the police captain, a woman named Tiffany Denzler, frowned her disapproval, saying, “Another outsider, Senator? This briefing was intended to be confidential.”
Hooker and I, the outsiders. Or maybe she meant staff, too. The captain had a point. Any of us could have ties with the bad guys.
Turning to the FBI agent, Denzler added, “I wouldn’t allow it, normally. I’m not sure I’m going to allow it tonight,” her tone less differential, her body language letting the room know that she was in charge—a bird-sized woman claiming more space, the way she stood, elbows out, hands on her familiar gun belt where there was a 9mm Glock, right side, in a speed holster.
The cop’s attitude changed when Barbara released my arm, saying, “Captain, were you sent to make decisions? You’re here to follow orders, that’s my understanding.”
“If that’s your understanding, Senator, I’m not going to burst your bubble—”
“A wise choice, Captain Denzler. You would disappoint the police commissioner and the head of your NYPD Captains Union—they’ve been very supportive in our phone conferences. The commissioner spoke well of you.”
Denzler cleared her throat. “Senator Hayes-Sorrento, if you expect us to find these people we can’t share information with every out-of-town visitor who happens to be in the neighborhood—”
“Visitors, Captain? How many of the kidnappers do you have in custody?”
Denzler said, “Pardon me, Senator?,” to give herself a second before she answered, “I have one suspect in custody. He hasn’t been charged yet because—”
“He’s
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