Jonathan Santlofer - Anatomy of Fear

We kept looking, hoping to find something that related to those abstracted explosion drawings, but there was nothing.

We scanned the room-the walls covered with posters, the table, the floor-and that’s when we found it: one more drawing, crumpled in a small trash can tucked under the table.

I smoothed it out on the table. It took only a few seconds for the image to register and set my body trembling.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

I explained it, stuttering, my fear kicking in, then we raced up the stairs and out the front door. It no longer mattered who saw us.

The Mercedes engine kicked over and I burned rubber down Twenty-third Avenue. I had one hand on the steering wheel, the other gripping my cell, hitting redial over and over. There was no answer. I pressed my foot to the accelerator and prayed I was not too late. I prayed to Jesus and Chango and every saint and orisha I could think of.

I prayed and prayed.

Iwas attempting to weave the Mercedes through a snarl of traffic we’d just hit on the FDR.

“Done,” said Terri, snapping her cell shut. “NYPD has an APB out on Wright, Queens PD is sending a CS team to comb through his house, and I called the local PD and told them where to meet us.”

“Did they say when they could get there?”

“They’ll get there soon. It’ll be okay.”

I wanted to believe her, but couldn’t stop worrying. I lay on my horn, but there was nowhere to go. “How about calling to get us an escort with a siren?”

“They’d have to fight this traffic to find us, and we’re not far, are we?”

I noted the signs, the exit coming up. No, we weren’t far, but every minute felt like an hour. I swerved the Mercedes onto the shoulder, reached the exit, and took the ramp a lot faster than the suggested thirty miles per hour.

“I’ve got to call Collins,” said Terri. “It kills me to do it, but I’m not going to give the G cause to say I kept them out of this.”

“While you’re at it, remember to have them call the dogs off me. ”

Terri made her call, then sat back and stared out the window. She had not yet told Rodriguez about Cold Case opening his father’s old murder book. Opening a Pandora’s box was more like it. She had never imagined it would cause him more trouble, give the PD and feds further reason to suspect him. She had thought she was doing him a favor, hoping to get him some closure when she went to Tutsel and Perkowski, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

She turned and looked at his profile, the square cut of his jaw set tighter than usual, the determined, almost frenzied, look in his eyes.

She’d been right about him. He’d broken the case for her.

And it was all going to be all right, wasn’t it?

Be quiet.”

He slaps the tape across her mouth, sick of her whimpering, unmoved by the tears on her face. “And don’t look at me!”

He cannot bear her stare, something about it unnerving. He would kill her right now if she were not so important.

He hears the footsteps above, the place filling up, empties his gym bag, and sets to work.

There were two local uniforms hanging outside the apartment door, a big redheaded guy, the other black, both looked as if they were fresh out of the academy.

“You’ve just been standing here?” I was practically shrieking, ready to tear their heads off, fumbling to get the key in the lock.

“We just got here,” said the redhead. “I knocked, but there was no answer.”

“You call this fucking backup?” I said to Terri.

She steadied my hand on the lock, said, “Take it easy,” and I almost took her head off too.

The young black cop said, “Our orders were to check out the premises, not to-”

I’d already drawn my gun and pushed the door open, so he didn’t finish, just got his revolver out while his partner did the same.

I led them into the apartment, holding my breath. I called out, “Uela!”

There was no answer.

The big redhead cop spied the Eleggua by the door. “What’s with the voodoo shit?”

I almost punched him.

Terri told him to go canvass the rest of the building, probably just to get him out of my face. Then we started down the narrow hallway I’d known all my life.

“Stay here,” she said to the black cop. “And watch our backs.”

He flinched. “You think the perp’s still here?”

Terri didn’t answer him and I had no idea, my usual radar buried under anxiety.

We checked everything. The front-hall closet was crowded with coats and scarves, impossible to hide in; the living room wide open; the cuarto de los santos produced raised brows from Terri, but she didn’t say anything, and it was empty; so was the bathroom.

“Looks clean,” she said. “Can you try calling her again?”

“This is her only phone.”

“No cell?”

“My grandmother? You kidding? She hasn’t even graduated to a cordless.”

We went back to the kitchen, and I spread the drawing that I’d taken from Wright’s trash onto the table.

“Did I read this wrong?”

The young uniform leaned over my shoulder. “What is it?”

“A drawing of this building, can’t you see that?” I had no patience. All I could think was that Tim Wright had been here and taken my grandmother with him. But where?

“Looks it,” he said. “But the number’s wrong.”

“What?” The guy was really working my nerves.

“This isn’t 106. It’s 301, according to the address we got on our orders-and that’s what it says outside.”

Jesus, he was right. I hadn’t noticed until he said it. The minute I’d seen the sketch and recognized it as my grandmother’s building, I’d just reacted. Now I looked at the three sketches we’d taken from Wright’s work table and tried to see if I’d missed anything else.

The cop Terri had sent out to canvass the building came back breathing heavy. “Fuckin’ elevator is out.”

“What about the neighbors?” she asked. “They see-hear-anything?”

“Place is practically deserted. Maybe ’cause it’s Sunday,” he said, “And because of the holiday.”

“What holiday?” I asked.

“It ain’t a biggie-unless you ask my wife, Maureen-Feast of the Annunciation. She’s like an expert on everything Catholic. I don’t know what it’s about, the feast, I mean, but Mo, she doesn’t miss a single-”

I stopped listening. “One-oh-six,” I said aloud. Then it clicked, and I saw it: what Wright was planning to do. “Jesus Christ!”

“Yeah,” said the redheaded cop. “I guess he had something to do with the feast.”

I heard my grandmother’s words when I’d kissed her good-bye. Change my clothes and go to church.

“A church!” I shouted, already moving, halfway out the door. “That’s where Wright’s headed. One-oh-six is 106th Street. My grandmother’s church. Saint Cecilia’s.”

Terri was calling for more backup as I sped the Mercedes through the streets of Spanish Harlem. I’d told her what I thought was about to go down.