Driven Page 3

  Gavin nodded slowly, then looked straight at the doctor. “Doc, I know he’s an old man who probably doesn’t have a whole lot of time left anyway. But he means a lot to me. Please call me when he comes to.” He handed the doctor a white business card. “His wife’s gone and most of his other close relatives have either died or moved away. I don’t want him to be alone when he starts to hurt.”

  Dr. Cohn took the business card. “Sure… Detective,” he said, reading the card. I’ll make sure you’re notified immediately.”

  As the doctor shook Gavin’s hand and left, the man in the tweed jacket stood up and walked over.

  “May I have a turn? I’d like to talk to you about what happened,” he said, holding out a detective’s shield. “I’m Detective Steve Rogers. I couldn’t help hearing the doctor call you Detective. What job are—”

  Gavin nodded before Rogers could finish his question. “Gavin Pierce, Nassau County.”

  “Which squad?”

  “Homicide.”

  “Really… Look, I, uh, understand this isn’t an easy time for you, but as you know, we have to ask dumb questions at bad times. If it’s okay, I’d like to—”

  “No problem,” Gavin said impatiently. If he weren’t so utterly consumed with Grampa’s condition he would have been amused at the role reversal.

  “I’ve got one question: did you see him?”

  “Who?”

  “The driver.”

  Gavin’s eyes widened. “You don’t have the driver yet?” How was that possible? He remembered the driver hadn’t been in the truck, but he’d assumed the person was simply wandering aimlessly in a shocked stupor.

  “No,” Rogers said, then looked away, his disappointment overshadowed by anger.

  Gavin’s focus intensified. “Weren’t you able to ID the driver through the truck?”

  “It wasn’t his,” Rogers said, clearly frustrated.

  “Stolen?”

  Rogers shook his head. “Belonged to the passenger.”

  “The passenger?” Gavin said, surprised anyone would abuse a vehicle that badly with the owner sitting right next to him. “Did you check with the passenger’s next of kin?”

  Rogers looked at him blankly. “Of course.”

  “And?” Gavin said, not caring if he sounded like he was challenging the man’s competency.

  “I spoke to his widow this morning. It wasn’t a pretty scene. But aside from that, she said her husband left in the morning to go fishing off the beach like he does every Sunday. Surf casting. All she could tell me was she was shocked he had been drinking. She claimed he was a recovering alcoholic and hadn’t had a drink in two years.”

  “Nothing on the driver?”

  Rogers shook his head. “The owner went alone and never mentioned anything about meeting up with anyone before he left. In fact, the wife said he preferred being alone. Said he would go to clear his head out. He was an auto mechanic—was putting in some long hours in his own garage and had one day off. He didn’t care if he caught a fish or not. And we’ve got no priors on him whatsoever.”

  “Still, the driver’s got to be somewhere,” Gavin said, his voice rising. “He’s got to be hurt. Did you check the local vendors, the park, under the boardwalk, other hospitals… the freakin’ garbage cans?”

  “We’re doing the best we can. Believe me, we want this guy, too.”

  Gavin exhaled, limped to the waiting-room window, and stared intently into the lightening sky. “He’ll turn up.”

  “He didn’t last time or the time before that,” Rogers said.

  Gavin spun around. “What?”

  “About a month ago we had a similar accident, although I’m using the term loosely. It wasn’t quite as spectacular and didn’t receive the press this one’s gonna, but it was the same guy.”

  “What happened?”

  “A movie theater. A multiplex down on Utica got rammed, killing two ticket girls. That one was a five-year-old Mercedes, and it had to have been flying. The passenger, a thirty-five-year-old professional woman from Manhattan, was DOA. No seat belt. Driver missing. Still missing. Passenger owned the car.”

  Gavin frowned and glanced around the room. “I’m surprised the Feds aren’t here, too.”

  Rogers nodded. “They spoke to me earlier. There’s too much wrong with the picture for them. Too much alcohol at the scene to consider religious fanatics. At best we might have some sort of copycat, but I don’t think this guy has much of a cause. Personally, I think he just likes to wreck things.”

  “How do you know it was the same driver?”

  “Prints, for one. Which is how we know for certain the driver’s a male. They’re big—really big. Prints on the door, on the wheel, on the beer cans and bottles thrown all over. And this,” Rogers said, reaching into the side pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a plastic evidence bag and dangled it in front of Gavin.

  “A crab claw?” Gavin said. It looked like something that had been taken from someone’s Red Lobster dinner.

  “Lobster claw, to be exact. It was used as a roach clip. I found one just like it in the ashtray of the Mercedes. This one was in the truck. Have you ever seen a lobster claw used as a roach clip before?”

  Gavin’s mind was spinning, rage building at the thought that this disaster had been intentional. The pain on the faces around him and the memory of the dead and injured on the ground at the aquarium, some of them children, took on new meaning. The anguish was no longer a result of an irresponsible accident. And the one who had caused it was still on the loose. Free.

  “No,” he finally said in reply to Roger’s question. “I haven’t.”

  “Neither have I. Now I have three of them. The first one was from a Jeep that crashed into some people sleeping under the boardwalk. It didn’t make the news, but with two dead homeless, one dead passenger, and a missing driver I got called in. The passenger, who owned the vehicle, was near pickled in vodka. The lobster claw was in the ashtray and wound up having the same fingerprints as the one found in the Mercedes. I don’t have to tell you we just found the same prints on this one.”

  “A serial killer? You’re telling me the driver’s a serial killer who uses cars and trucks instead of a gun?”

  “Instead of a howitzer would be more like it.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “I mean, he can’t care about his own life, either.”

  “Not if he’s placing all his trust in airbags and seat belts.”

  “And you have no idea how to find him because he never drives his own car and the passenger’s always dead.”

  “You’re starting to get the picture.”

  “Why would anyone give him the keys? If they know him they’ve got to know he’s nuts, and if they don’t know him, they’d be giving their car to a stranger. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “All the passengers were drunk. Very drunk. The Jeep passenger had .31 percent alcohol in the blood. The Mercedes woman was .29 and the truck guy .34.”

  “Point three-four? He must have been dead before the crash.”

  Rogers shook his head. “Unbelievably, no. Way too much blood at the scene to have come from someone already dead. At least he never felt that post go through him.” He handed Gavin a business card that read “Detective Steven Rogers, Accident Investigation Squad.”

  Gavin took the card and looked in the direction of the ICU. “Yeah, wouldn’t have wanted him to suffer any,” he said bitterly.

  Rogers paused, then looked with Gavin toward the ICU. “Hey, I’m real sorry about your grandfather, Pierce. We’ll get this guy. He likes what he does. Sooner or later he’ll turn up—probably dead as a passenger in his own car. If he has one.”

  “Right now, I’d rather have him alive,” Gavin said, clenching his fist. “I’d rather have him alive.”

  5

  Krogan drained the last few ounces from a stray fifth of Jack Daniel’s he’d found discarded in an empty bait bucket. He put the
cap back on the bottle and threw it overboard in the hope another boat would hit it. Two weeks had passed since he’d woken up inside a Coney Island Dumpster, reeking of fermenting garbage and in so much pain he could hardly move. Now the pain was gone and as usual he had only a spotty recollection of what had happened. He had heard the confirming news of the crash at the aquarium and was quite proud of the results.

  He continued to cruise outside the mouth of Hempstead Harbor, paying zero attention to the new construction on what had once been called the Gold Coast, where famous turn-of-the-century money moguls’ estates were now being turned into up-scale waterfront developments. He had no interest in local or even global growth; he despised the old estates, the new homes, the builders, and whoever the new owners would be.

  Instead he monitored his GPS, seeking to locate exactly where he had placed his hidden buoy and lobster trap. The technology of the unit meant nothing to him; it was nothing more than a tool. In fact, he would rather have used a surface marker, but then the traps could be pilfered as they had been when he used to work these waters with his father.

  Krogan grimaced. He never thought about his father anymore. The man was long dead and gone. Krogan had never known his mother, who’d left him and his father when he was too young to remember. Krogan’s father had spent his time either working the lobster traps or drinking. By the time he died of liver disease, Krogan knew enough to get by in his inherited business, which was all he cared to do.

  Although his lobster boat was forty feet long with a huge beam and spacious work area that covered more than half the vessel, Krogan didn’t look out of proportion in comparison. He was a big man—more than 280 pounds, six-five and muscular. His rock-hard right arm bore a tattoo of a speeding horse-drawn chariot with a cloud of fire in its draft. The chariot was driven by a man with a gargoyle’s head and was pulled by a horse with bright yellow eyes—a souvenir of another night he couldn’t remember. The demonic display reflected colorfully in the bright sunlight.

  He pulled back on the throttle with a large, meaty hand, quieting the deep rumble of the rugged diesel that powered the boat, which he had renamed Shadahd—the password that, when spoken at the right time to the right person, unlocked doors he had not known to exist a few years ago. With a steady fifteen mile-per-hour wind from the stern, the boat drifted over the submerged buoy marker in the choppy summer waters of Long Island Sound. It was 11:50 A.M. and this was his first pickup of the day, which had started for him only an hour ago. Not that he had a schedule to keep—the lobsters didn’t care what time it was, so why should he?

  He leaned over and saw the buoy below the water’s surface, right where he had planted it. He fished for the suspended line with a long gaff, snagged it, and pulled it up, his muscular forearms flexing as the old, barnacle-encrusted Styrofoam marker broke the cool surface. As he pulled the buoy over the side he noticed a sailboat heading in his direction. He recognized it instantly—the same cursed sailboat had cut too close to his bow three days ago when he was dropping the traps. He snarled at the boat. If it happened again, the puny moron trying to sail it would pay.

  He picked up the line and wrapped it around the pulley winch. The clutch mechanism engaged and the winch began to pull the line. The first trap lifted into the air, water cascading back into the waves below. He pulled the trap onto the boat’s ledge table and felt no special gratitude for the lone lobster he found inside. Stepping back from the trap he examined the creature—a three-pounder, flapping and snapping. He was about to band the creature’s lively claws when a stirring sensation swirled through his head, as if a swarm of bees were using his brain for their hive. His gaze shifted from the lobster toward the sunlight sparkling on the nearby wave tops. The dancing light quickly fell into a hypnotic rhythm with the slow rocking action of the boat; he could no longer look away or even blink. The rolling of the waves appeared to slow. The sound of water lapping up against the side of the boat faded into a low hiss as the natural, conscious world in which he lived once again faded into a vision from the unknown.

  In the vision Krogan saw a young woman—a waitress—scribbling orders on a pad as she stood at a table where four businessmen were seated, one of them pointing at the open menu in his hand. The waitress was shapely, dressed in khaki shorts, a white button-down shirt, and tan canvas boots with matching socks. She looked more like she was dressed for a safari than to wait tables. Her brown hair was pulled back in a French braid, revealing a gold, five-point star earring the size of a quarter. Krogan felt a desire to meet her—a hunger.

  As he stared at the vision of the woman, Krogan heard a loud horn blast, then another. The vision began to break up. He blinked as the air cleared and the sunlit water reappeared. Overpowering the low rumble of his boat came another blast. He shook his head clear and turned in the direction of the intruder.

  That same feeble sailboat had not sufficiently altered its course and was approaching rapidly. The man in the sailboat was having a terrible time handling his craft. Krogan was familiar with this particular forty-one-foot Morgan, having seen it many times in one of the slips behind the bulkhead in the harbor. An experienced sailor could have handled the boat by himself, but this guy was nothing but a rookie. Krogan despised him for that. His repulsion mounted as the man desperately ran back and forth trying to compensate for his inadequate skills. The fool had obviously miscalculated the wind and his angle of tack, and though he would probably miss hitting the stern of Krogan’s boat, he would be dangerously close. Dangerous for the man, that was…

  Krogan could care less about an accident. In fact, he enjoyed the thought and considered making it a reality. His boat was much stronger and heavier than the sailboat. He could motor out far enough for his powerful engine to get him to full speed and then ram the other craft dead center. He’d cut that wind-sucker in half like an ax through a watermelon, and hopefully the rookie with it.

  The Morgan drew closer, entering Krogan’s space. He could see now that the man was not alone. A young woman in a bathing suit designed for maximum sun absorption and minimum imagination stood up to see how close they were coming. She had the kind of looks most men would desire, but Krogan was unimpressed; if she was entertained by such an idiot as this inept sailor, then she deserved to share in whatever calamity befell him.

  “Sorry,” the man yelled in a clumsy attempt at camaraderie as the massive sails of his boat blocked Krogan’s sun and they passed within fifty feet of Shadahd’s stern. The sexy passenger smiled and mouthed the same feeble apology.

  Krogan wished he could reach out, pull the fool overboard by the throat, and drown him. But no—he would bide his time. For now, he would simply send his enemies a message. He stared them both in the eye, raised the three-pound lobster, and in a single movement ripped it in half with his bare hands as if it were a prophetic voodoo doll reflecting their own destiny. Without the least expression he crushed the tail in his hand, squeezing the raw meat into his mouth while the claws on the other half of the animal continued to twitch and snap in phantom reaction.

  The inept sailor’s eyes widened in surprise and his passenger looked away in apparent disgust. Krogan laughed loudly, with meat still hanging out of his mouth, until the mortified couple passed from earshot. He made note of the sailboat’s name, written in script on the stern: Playdate.

  “Enjoy it,” he said. “It’ll be your last.”

  6

  Gavin stood under a large shade tree on a small hill less than a hundred feet away and watched. He was alone. He clenched his fists as the gravediggers tossed the first shovelful of dirt into the hole and he heard it land on Grampa’s coffin. He wondered how many others associated with the crash had heard that same sound. Thud… thud…

  Gavin was no stranger to cemeteries and coffins and mounds of dirt being shoveled into holes. His father had died of pneumonia when he was six, his mother of cancer when he was sixteen, and his fiancée of one day on a motorcycle ten years ago.

  Earlier, while the cask
et had still straddled the hole, a lone priest had arrived to pay his respects. Gavin had briefly thanked him for coming but aside from that had nothing to say to him. Finally, the priest had mumbled a short prayer and left. Gavin had not prayed. He had done his praying while Grampa was still alive. Grampa didn’t need prayer anymore. Gavin had no doubt Grampa was with God and heaven was a better place with Grampa there.

  The two gravediggers had waited patiently a short distance away while Gavin spoke with the priest and said his good-byes to Grampa. When Gavin finally stepped away from the gravesite, they had moved in and lowered the coffin into the cold, dark cavity. From the lack of mourners, they must have thought Grampa was just another nobody, unloved and forgotten. Gavin wanted to tell them they were wrong. He wanted to tell them Grampa was known and loved and would be remembered… and avenged.

  The thought of Grampa’s death still had not set in, and from past experience, he knew it would take a while. Three days ago, when he had first heard, awakened by the phone call at one in the morning, he had not believed it. There must be some mistake, he’d thought. He had just been with the old man twelve hours earlier and the doctors’ and nurses’ smiling faces had assured him Grampa was stable. He’d even been developing an appetite. The doctors, who had at first braced Gavin for the worst, had upgraded his grandfather’s status, raising Gavin’s hopes from doubtful to questionable to probable. The outrage of the crime had become almost tolerable when Grampa began winking at Gavin while being pampered by the young nurses.

  But suddenly Grampa was dead. Assassinated by a blood clot. Dead without Gavin being there at his bedside.

  All the rage tempered by Grampa’s progress had returned. Stronger. Grampa had not just died; he had been killed—intentionally murdered. The blood clot could just as well have been the impact of the truck itself.

  Gavin blinked. The workers were gone and the grave filled. An afternoon breeze cooled the sweat on his brow and leaves came to rest on the fresh dirt mound. Except for a couple of squirrels chasing each other around the trunk of a big maple tree and a few sparrows hopping on and off an old thin tombstone pecking at seeds, there wasn’t a sign of life amidst the shallow rolling hills of this humble cemetery.