‘Thank you, Detective Harper. Thank you for helping.’
Harper nodded and stayed quiet.
‘Aaron. You told me when we first met that you made Abby carry pepper spray and a rape alarm,’ Denise said.
‘Yes, for her protection. What else can a father do?’
‘Do you remember the brand of pepper spray?’
‘Brand? No. It was pink. I bought her pink. I thought she would be more likely to carry it.’
‘Detective Harper here thought Abby might have cut through the woods to get to the bus stop.’
‘Why would she try to get to the bus stop?’
‘I’m not saying she was trying to run away, sir, only that she was going somewhere she didn’t want you to know about.’
‘I see.’ Aaron lowered his head.
Denise took his hand. ‘We searched the path. We found a discarded canister of pepper spray. Pink.’
Aaron’s eyes glanced rapidly between the two cops, trying desperately to make sense. He couldn’t. ‘What does it mean? She is dead?’
Harper stepped forward. ‘Sir, we got a clean thumbprint off the lid of the spray. It matches Abby’s.’
The man’s eyes seemed wild with pain and anguish. ‘Is she dead?’
Denise shook her head. ‘We don’t know. But it means that it’s unlikely that she ran away. It looks like she was heading through the woods and somebody came across her.’
‘Was the spray used?’
‘Yes. The whole canister.’
‘She’s a fighter, Abby. She wouldn’t just let someone take her. She would fight.’
Denise and Tom Harper stared on, unable to speak or help the man.
‘We’ve got the woods closed off now. We’re doing a full search,’ said Harper.
Aaron’s lips stared to tremble as dark thoughts clawed through his mind.
‘It doesn’t mean she’s dead, sir.’
‘No? What does it mean?’
‘Keep hoping, Aaron. There’s no saying what will happen,’ said Denise.
Harper pulled out his sketchbook. ‘We found these symbols on a tree near to the entrance to the park. They mean anything to you?’
Aaron took the sketchbook. ‘It’s used by neo-Nazis,’ he said.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m Jewish, I was brought up in Brooklyn. I’m a Holocaust specialist. Nazi graffiti is a perennial flower.’
‘So what does it mean?’
‘Eighth letter of the alphabet.’
‘H?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So what does H mean?’
‘It’s double H, as in HH. Which stands for Heil Hitler.’
Harper drew breath. ‘It’s unbelievable. Do they not know what the Nazis did? What they stood for?’
‘I doubt it. Or they find it powerful because they feel weak. Evil has that capacity to captivate those who feel hard done by in life.’
‘Could this symbol be traced to anyone?’
‘No,’ said Aaron. ‘It is too common.’ He watched Harper closely. He felt there was something more. He stood up.
‘What is it, Detective? You want to say something.’
‘I want to go public with your daughter’s disappearance. I want to call it a homicide.’
‘But you don’t know that she’s dead!’
‘You have to trust me, Dr Goldenberg. My feeling is that it plays into his or their hands to have Abby labeled a runaway. That way, the cops don’t make these links. If we call it a homicide, he just might have to prove she’s alive.’
‘If she is alive,’ said Aaron.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lafayette sat on the desk. ‘Where you been, Harper?’
‘Collecting symbols.’ He threw down two photographs. ‘We found these 88 symbols at the woods where Abby Goldenberg was taken. So I went back to the Capske crime scene — and guess what? He left an 88 on the corner of the alleyway.’
‘Might not be him.’
‘No, but it’s another link, Captain, between Capske and Abby. We could have a Nazi killer on our hands. An 88 Killer.’
‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’
‘I won’t. How did things go at your meeting with the Feds?’
‘They want us to keep them informed.’
‘So they backed off?’
‘They backed off. Your print and link to Lukanov was enough.’
Harper hit the desk. ‘That’s good. Now I need another favor.’
‘What?’
‘Abby Goldenberg. Can you swing it under our jurisdiction on the evidence of these 88 symbols and the Lukanov link?’
‘I think I can pull it off Missing Persons. They don’t want it, but she’s not necessarily dead, is she?’
‘We’re hunting a killer and she’s linked, let it be enough for now.’
‘Okay, Harper, but keep me right up to speed on this.’
Harper agreed and headed down to the investigation room. He met up with Eddie. ‘What you got, Eddie?’
‘We’ve got nothing,’ said Eddie. ‘We cross-referenced homicides with reported hate crime and Jewish identity and we got nothing. Sorry.’
Harper sighed. ‘You go take a break. I’ll give it a go.’
Eddie pushed back from the desk and swung his legs out. ‘Thanks, I need to eat. You want something?’
‘Yeah, anything you can get.’
Eddie left and Harper sat in his seat and looked at Eddie’s searches. He’d tried everything. There were four murders highlighted. Two more drug shootings involving Caucasian victims, one Brooklyn murder and one Brooklyn mugging-homicide. Harper read the details. The two drug shootings belonged to the Bronx. The two white kids had been dealing under the noses of the suppliers. They were punished.
Harper stood up and walked around the precinct investigation room. The killer had killed before, so what were they missing? Maybe he had killed and taken the bodies like he might have done with Abby.
Harper logged in again. He tried to cross-reference missing Jewish girls with the MO. Harper looked down list after list. He felt the thud each time the unimaginable crimes flickered to life on his screen. Faces of the dead, bodies photographed in harsh light from every angle. No crime scene on TV could ever convey the banality, the lack of humanity. But there was no link.
Harper trawled through, going through month after month, not knowing what he was looking for, feeling like he was struggling through the darkest jungle, with predators all around. People shot, stabbed, battered, crushed, raped, torn, slashed. Words mingled in Harper’s mind with the images and he had to bat them all aside to keep the emotion away.
