Читать книгу Ailanthus - Antonio De Vito - Страница 7

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It was early in the morning on Bedford Avenue and a curious mass crowded the perimeter delineated by the police’s yellow tape. The scene was macabre and people’s curiosity became morbid. A man had been dragged out from his car through the window. He was still hanging in half from the door and on the floor there was a huge blood pool gushed from his throat clearly torn apart right off.

Another macabre particular made the crowd cringe. The victim’s right eye had been gouged out the orbit. The people seemed more horrified by this particular than by the murder itself.

The police had been called by an anonymous number. They had come running without knowing what sight they would have had to witness.

Sergeant Berrimow directed the first operation on the crime scene. Even to Frank that scene had a definitely strong impact, although the experience on the De Sena case was still carved in his mind.

Frank Berrimow had spent two weeks in hospital before totally recovering, after the incident in Fort Tryon Park. That story left him in legacy an ugly scar under his right shoulder, but also a promotion to the grade of Sergeant and the relocation to the Detective Bureau. Now he was dealing with murders and his boss was Jack Folasky. He didn’t regret Cross. Folasky seemed to believe in him much more than Cross had done in the past. Frank, for this reason, was really enthusiastic about his new assignment.

The images of that awful crime made him immediately pay the thought to Stacie Scott. Frank wished that she was coming back to New York as soon as possible. He couldn’t know what had happened in Switzerland and he couldn’t imagine in what conditions she would have come back.

Finished the Preliminaries and fenced off the area to avoid that the curious would interfere with the investigations, Frank left the operation’s control to his coworker Michael Pet and went to the headquarter, the One Police Plaza, to refer to his boss Jack Folasky. Frank wanted to understand if that brutal crime, committed in the neighborhood of Flatbush, could be the prelude of something worse. Also, he was worrying about Stacie’s extended absence and whether that murder could be assigned to another attorney because of territoriality matters. If it was like that, Stacie had no chance to follow that case.

“Jack, what I saw it’s incredible. That man was pulled out the window of his car with an inconceivable violence and had his throat cut clean. Also there’s the matter that concerns the ferocity with which the murderer went after the body. I’m worried that we should expect some other murderers.”

Jack Folasky was the head of the Detective Bureau from more than two years. He found in his cup of coffee, always on his desk, every answer when it was time to receive some. Even if it wasn’t normal in that environment, he hated the smoke and because of this, his guys before getting in his room always checked one another. He was more than fifty years old but he was looking good.

“Frank, how long have you been here at the Detective Bureau?” Meanwhile, he was tinkering his bonsai with a tweezers and a magnifying glass.

“For about three months, Boss.”

“Maybe this is the reason why what you’ve seen seems incredible to you. But what you said it’s true. A scene like the one you described to me makes me think of a psycho. There’s not much to relax about.”

“Boss, do you think that this murder is in Prosecutor Douglas’ responsibility? Well, it’s Brooklyn’s?”

“Don’t worry; I know you hope to work again with Stacie Scott. Douglas is now Prosecutor of New York Southern District. There won’t be any territorial incompatibility. The bigger problem for the moment is Stacie Scott’s forced absence. We all hope that she’ll come back soon, in full of her abilities.”

Frank Berrimow went confidently out of Folasky’s room sharing the same hope about Stacie’s rapid return.