Thomas O`Callaghan - The Screaming Room

“What kind of mission?” asked Driscoll.

“He’s passing Ground Zero. Still heading south.” Margaret raised her head and looked to Driscoll. “I hope you’re up to date on your E-ZPass account. He just went under the overpass, which will take him into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.”

“Call Dispatch. Have them alert Highway Two.” The Lieutenant applied pressure to the gas pedal, glancing at the fuel level gauge.

“You want Highway to assist?”

“No. Just let them know we’re tailing him through their borough. We don’t want him stopped.”

The F train twisted hard to the left after exiting the underground station at Carroll Street, just east of Red Hook in Brooklyn. The screech of metal resonated throughout the subway car, as lights flickered within. Daylight then greeted the train as it climbed toward an encasement of steel girders supported by massive concrete columns that formed a bridge over the Gowanus Canal.

The woman was having an exceptionally good day. Now, if she could only discover how to string them into a week, a month, a year. She adjusted the leather strap of her shoulder bag, preparing to exit the train three stops ahead at Ninth Street in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. She had resided in the upscale neighborhood most of her life, occupying the third floor of a four-story brownstone on Sixth Street. Thanks to urban gentrification, the rent for the one-bedroom apartment had quadrupled over the years, but so had her income. A tradeoff. It allowed her to remain in the neighborhood, where she had amassed a trove of wonderful memories. If she closed her eyes, she could still experience the feeling, the very smell, of her first-grade classroom at Saint Saviour’s Elementary. Just last week she marveled at the panorama of pure visual delight at Brooklyn’s Botanical Garden. The Slope, as it had come to be called, featured a host of fine restaurants to accommodate everyone’s palate, an expansive array of boutiques, and a number of cozy coffee shops along its main thoroughfare, Seventh Avenue.

After a brief interlude of sunshine, the train descended underground again, delivering her to the Slope at Ninth Street, where brilliant early evening sunshine greeted her. Her brownstone sat a mere three blocks away.

After her trek, which included a quick stop to purchase a small bouquet of fresh-cut irises, she turned the corner and headed south, hoping to be home in time to catch her favorite show on Food Network.

But because someone had other plans, she never got to see what went into the shepherd’s pie.

Police chatter continued to emanate from the cruiser’s radio as Driscoll and company continued tailing Shewster. After sailing through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, the limo continued east. When it buzzed past Kennedy Airport, Margaret looked up from the laptop. “In another five minutes, he’ll be crossing into Nassau County. You want me to let the chief of detectives know we’re heading out of the city?”

Their crime prevention effort wasn’t exactly in sync with department regulations. “We’d better run silent,” said Driscoll.

“You got it.”

“How’s a guy from California know his way around New York? We haven’t hit one traffic tie-up or construction bottleneck yet!” said Thomlinson.

“The day is young, my friend.”

At the five-mile marker on the Southern State Parkway, Driscoll brought the Chevy to a complete stop behind a procession of red brake lights.

Margaret believed that if anyone, passenger or driver, raved about the good fortune of hitting no traffic, an immediate tie-up would materialize. “You had to make a remark about no traffic problems, didn’t you?” She shot Thomlinson a glare.

Though tempted, Thomlinson figured now wouldn’t be the best time to light a cigar, certain Margaret would have some superstition about that as well.

“Where’s our friend?” Driscoll asked.

“About a half-mile up. He appears to be moving slowly. Let’s hope that means we’ll also be rolling soon.”

It didn’t.

As Driscoll’s cruiser crept along at a snail’s pace, Margaret charted the course of the now free-rolling limo.

“How’d he get through?” asked Thomlinson, taking note of flickering red and yellow lights in the distance.

“He probably passed the crash site before the emergency vehicles arrived to restrict access to lanes.”

Twenty frustrating minutes later they, too, were rolling. What Driscoll had lost in distance, he hoped to make up for in speed. With siren blaring and emergency lights ablaze, he rocketed past cars clearing the middle lane.

“The limo stopped,” said Aligante.

“Where?”

“He exited the parkway a mile into Suffolk County near the intersection of Bosley Road and Anderson.”

“Anderson what?”

She tilted the laptop, seeking a better view. “It just says Anderson.”

“Get Suffolk PD on the line. Find out what’s there.”

Fifteen minutes later, Driscoll, Aligante, and Thomlinson exited a garden supply center at 2276 Anderson Drive. None of them looked happy. After a brief conversation with the owner, it had been determined that a man matching Shewster’s description had pulled up in a stretch limo, came into the center, and had purchased a cemetery blanket. The owner, Carl Phillips, had helped him with his selection, which was intended for the grave of his sister, Muriel, who, according to Shewster, had died three years ago while a resident at a nearby assisted-living center. All indications were that Shewster was headed for Saint Thomas’s Cemetery, four miles east. The laptop had him coming to a stop at Withers Road and Degraw Place in Sayville.

“That’d be the cemetery,” Phillips told them.

That prompted Margaret to use the laptop to access the Web site Interment. net, where the burial of one Muriel R. Shewster was recorded. It indicated she had been interred precisely three years ago today. Driscoll asked Thomlinson to call Saint Thomas’s. When he did, the gentlemen who answered said, “That’s odd. You’re the second person inside of twenty minutes to ask about Muriel Shewster.” It came as no surprise when Thomlinson was informed that the other inquirer said he was the deceased’s brother, Malcolm, and was seeking directions to her grave. His description matched that of Shewster’s.

The three climbed back into Driscoll’s Chevy.

Quiet prevailed during their trip back to the city.

Driscoll was annoyed. Jesus Christ! What was I thinking? Three officers? I used three officers chasing the goddamn pied piper? Next time, if there is a next time, one of us will trail the limo. How hard could it be to monitor a laptop while driving a car, for Chrissake? And this Malcolm Shewster. The man was full of surprises. He had a heart. Or so it seemed.

A knock sounded, dispelling the Lieutenant’s self-deprecation. Looking up, he found Thomlinson shadowing the door to his office, sporting a huge smile.

“Cedric, you hit it big at Keno?”

“Better. You’re gonna love this,” he said, stepping inside. “Department of Corrections called. One Mr. Oliver Novak, a resident of Cell Block B in Sing Sing, says he recognizes the faces in the photo.”

“Faces? Our photo shows only Angus.”

“Ready?”

“Okay. Out with it before your face shatters from that grin.”

“He recognized Angus and Cassie from their photo as kids on the reservation. Claims to have met them. Now…are you really ready?”

Driscoll looked like he was getting annoyed again. Cedric sensed it, so he ended the suspense with a whisper, “Says he knows the father.”