Chapter 15: November 25th – New York – Late Morning
The media started calling him “The
Angel of Death” as soon as they received their care packages from the
psychopath himself containing letters to the police, his manifesto, and
pictures of the crucifixion of detectives Michael Morrow and Jane Brockbank.
They could’ve called him by his real name, Thomas Worthington but that name
doesn’t attract viewers, sell newspapers, or ad revenue. The first media report
came out at about 6:30am, a few minutes before Joseph
arrived to the Cyrus Communications building. By 11am the
hashtag #AngelOfDeath was topping worldwide, and soon after
that the biggest man hunt in New York’s history kicks off.
The former office of Michael Morrow is
still used as the war room for the Angel of Death case. It’s the only place
where information is sorted, filtered, and sent out to officers, media, and
other government bodies. Currently Paul O’Healy, Joseph Pierre, Agent Kwok
& Mach are gathered in the room with O’Healy sitting at Michael’s former
desk. Joseph is leaning against the back glass wall and the exhausted agents
Mach & Kwok took the two seats in front of the desk. The two FBI agents just
arrived from their trips to Baltimore and Summerville, both of them breaking
several speeding laws to get in the office just before11am. Paul O’Healy wants to run all the
information they’ve gathered and pieced together with the core investigators in
the case before they go out and search for their suspect Thomas Worthington.
The only things missing in the
meeting is Joseph’s evidence from Paul O’Healy’s granddaughter’s death, valid
search warrants for the residence of Thomas Worthington and Naomi King, and a
full run down on Thomas Worthington’s manifesto he sent to the police
department. Joseph didn’t feel it was necessary to bring his evidence
considering it’ll damage Paul O’Healy’s name. The evidence against Paul O’Healy
would damage him legally for covering it up and being involved in the case where
he knew he is related to one of the victims, but professionally as a magic user
as well. The consequences of Joseph’s reveal of the evidence outweigh the
possible benefits the case would receive in regards to information since they’ve
gotten footage of Thomas Worthington thanks to the Cyrus Communications
security footage. Paul O’Healy starts the meeting.
“Agent Mach, tell us what you
found about Thomas Worthington, who fancies himself being called the Angel Of
Death.”
“Thomas Worthington is son to Wayne
Worthington, a Captain with the Baltimore Police. A year or so ago Thomas was
caught stealing weapons from his dad’s police cruiser. He got in trouble but
nothing serious and served only community service. He moved to New York about 4
months ago, and his family hasn’t heard from him in a few months. They gave us
his current location, which we verified with the land lord of Happy Hills Manor.
The address is also the last address officer Jane Brockbank was seen at.” Agent
Mach did most of this piecing of evidence together in his car on the drive back
with his cellphone.
“Good work, Joseph you got anything
about the case Jane Brockbank was working on?” Paul O’Healy tosses the
conversation to Joseph. His way of scrumming and syncing up with groups is to
get everyone to talk so they’re all participating, and listening.
“Yeah.” Joseph starts of. He moves
from leaning against the glass wall to standing, his hands out of his pockets. “Jane
Brockbank was called to check up on a girl named Naomi King who reported
someone stalking her. Upon talking to her Jane checked in with dispatch saying
she’s going to Happy Hills Manor to talk to the stalker and get his side of the
story. She turns up dead several hours later. Her police car hasn’t been found
yet. The apartment number she went to matches Thomas’s Apartment number that
his father gave us. We’ve sent people looking for Naomi King, a patrol car has
been sent out to her work and to Happy Hills a few minutes ago. While they’re
looking for her they may tap on Thomas’s door. Never know, eh?”
“Kwok, I’m assuming your findings in
Summerville turned up shit all, correct?” Paul O’Healy asked.
“The only thing I learned is that
Horizon didn’t do it and their church is in disarray after the attack. I think
people in that town may’ve been affected positively by the slayings, they’re
seeing how fucking stupid they look when they’re on the other side of mourning.”
Kwok filled in about his visit to Summerville.
“When life gives you lemons, eh?”
Joseph chips in.
“Ok then, so do we know why Thomas is
doing this and why he looks like a freak? Do we know what he wants with this
Naomi girl?” The question was to the group. Kwok shrugged, he had no idea he is
the furthest away from the group in terms of knowledge about the killer since
his trail was a dead end.
“No clue, there were a few things on
his school record saying he harassed a few girls. Other than that nothing much,
didn’t have time as I was also looking into other possibilities of the missing
guns.” Agent Mach said, Joseph pitches in.
“Social media has him single. The only
thing I can find why he did so much to himself is that in his manifesto he
keeps calling himself an angel for the new gods. He was their death, and he was
looking for others. That’s as far as I got before I decided to look into other
avenues. We still don’t know how get got the wings on himself, most likely
someone helped.” Joseph finished up, he had a few hours to study and waste
while he waited for Mach and Kwok to return from their trips. Paul O’Healy
remained at his seat, unlike Michael he wasn’t half paying attention to the
meeting and half on his computer, he was fully immersed in the case, a sign of
a true old school commissioner.
“So, why is he
naked when he kills?” Paul O’Healy asked, looking around the room. There was
silence for a second as no one knew the reason why. In all witness accounts and
video of Thomas killing people he’s always naked.
“Perhaps he’s mimicking
a real angel? I mean in old school art and fiction, when does an angel wear
clothes and shows gender bits? Maybe it’s a shock tactic?” Kwock suggests, the
rest of the group stayed silent. O’Healy carried the conversation along.
“Ok, so here’s the plan. We check the
apartments. Joseph your job is to find Naomi and make sure she stays in your
sight, if Thomas is really stalking her she’s most likely the next target.
Agent Kwok and Mach gather evidence at the Happy Hills whatever the fuck it’s
called. All of you call me when you know something, get it-got it-good.” With
that Paul O’Healy dismisses his core crew. Other officers in the NYPD are
focused on the man hunt, doing a general search of the city for Thomas
Worthington and Jane Brockbank’s police car. The three of them, Kwok, Mach, and
Joseph all leave directing other officers where they need them.
The
three of them breaks the officers into three separate groups. The biggest group
does a general search of New York on the streets with most of their attention
focusing on the bigger religious sections of New York, a smaller group of about
six people are sent ahead to the Happy Hills Manor, and four people were sent
to the Fox Tail to see if they can find Naomi King. Joseph, Kwok, and Mach
headed towards Happy Hills Manor, maybe they’ll get lucky and both of them are
home? All three of them left once they were able to get the court orders for
the apartments and Fox Tail strip club. Agents Kwok & Mach shared a police
cruiser, and Joseph takes an unmarked one.
The ride to
Happy Hills for Joseph Pierre became unsettling. In the back of his mind he
keeps thinking something bad is about to happen, after all it’s rare for a case
like this to unfold so quickly to a finish like this. When he pulls into the
turnaround for cars dropping people off at the apartment building it was filled
with police cars. Joseph and a bunch of other police officers are waiting for
management to come over to provide keys and open the main doors. As soon as
management looked over the search warrants they opened the door and a massive
rush of officers ran in, most of them going to Thomas Worthington’s place,
Joseph Pierre and a few of them headed towards Naomi King’s door.
Room #323 is a smaller apartment on
the upper floors of the building. It was a corner apartment squished between
#322 and #324 which are regular box sized apartments. The building smelled,
which is one of the reasons why Joseph never liked condos in Montreal or
Vancouver, the dull reek of body fluids and stench isn’t at all pleasant. Joseph
and a few police officers rushed to the door, Joseph tries knocking on it
first.
“Naomi?” Joseph asks. A minute goes by
and Joseph tries again, when no answer came he opened the door into the bedroom
apartment with the key provided by management.
The apartment is small, with a hallway
leading into the living room. The living room isn’t bare and is well lived in
with dishes on the coffee table and movies on the floor. The couch is a sofa
one would easily find at value village and the television isn’t a flat screen
but an old tube. The kitchen next to the living room is small, only room enough
for one person to cook inside of it, dishes were also everywhere in the sink.
The smell of the place was ok, it wasn’t too bad just unclean.
“Can’t find any
pictures of what she looks like, gonna try the bedroom.” Joseph shouts out,
heading towards the bedroom. Joseph puts his hand on the doorknob, turning the
handle and opens the door. Loud automatic gunfire can be heard elsewhere in the
building. Before Joseph took a look at inside the bedroom he turns to the other
two cops.
“Shit, stay here, Search the room.”
Joseph yells, running out of the apartment towards the emergency stairs. The
shooting stops just as he reaches halfway down the steps, he doesn’t hear any
return fire. He reaches for his gun on his holster which is loose around his
waist. With his gun out he expects to see Thomas standing over a bunch of dead
police officers, when he arrived to the second floor he found out he is half
right.
Down the hall
several officers are on the floor, most of them are covering their heads and
ears with their hands as they lay on the floor belly down. Rampant clicking
noises can be heard coming from the room belonging to Thomas Worthington. As
Joseph moves closer to the scene he recognizes the building manager is on the
ground his body half slumped on the far wall. Joseph looks around at the bodies
as most officers seem to be getting up, Agent Mach & Kwok are among those
who stood up. A few police officers remained on the ground, their gunshot
wounds became apparent to Joseph.
Joseph heads into the room and that’s
when he saw what caused the gun shots. Standing on a tripod is an automatic
rifle Thomas used to shoot up God’s Divinity United, the trigger is rigged to
the door by string so if the door opens, the trigger would pull back and open
fire. The clicking sound still coming from the apartment is because the gun
running out of ammo, it was a trap and Thomas was expecting someone to come to
his apartment. Joseph headed inside, disregarding protests from Agent Mach.
“Can’t go in there. We need a bomb
squad. Other things may be booby trapped.” Mach warns, Joseph, he didn’t care.
Joseph walks
down the hallway, not concerned too much about booby traps. He searched the
rooms and when he found a room covered in computer wires with computer parts
laying on the ground Joseph calls out, “Get forensics in here.” The police
officers started to storm the room, and once emergency services arrived for the
wounded officers, Joseph took off telling Agent Mach he is heading out.
“I’m heading to the Fox Tail now. Still
gotta find this Naomi girl.”
Joseph drives
the unmarked police car towards the Fox Tail strip club. He isn’t thinking
about much, his main concern is grabbing the girl and getting her back to the
station so she can be questioned and put into protective custody. The drive was
quick, only about thirty minutes and Joseph took the streets recommended on his
GPS. During the drive he received a few transmissions from the police radio in
his car, the one that concerned him the most is that Detective’s Jane Brockbank’s
car has been found and been cleared out of any and all weapons, the person
repeating the transmission didn’t say what was taken exactly.
The Scene
around the Fox Tail strip club wasn’t ideal for anyone. It was a cold morning
with news of a super storm arriving in the next few days, it wasn’t raining but
the four police officers outside the club in their different positions didn’t
like it. The officers cars were in the parking lot, but the officers themselves
were standing in different positions so they can cover all the entrances and
exits of the Fox Tail. The inside of Fox Tail had a few more officers providing
security along with the house’s security detail. The place was dead inside,
strippers weren’t on stage and the bartender was sitting around, no one wanted
to come in for their lunch at the docks because the place is surrounded by
police cars.
Joseph entered
the club, he wasn’t dressed as a police officer so security hassled him until
one of the NYPD cops stepped in. “Is Naomi King here?”
“Ya…” A female
voice said, a young Asian girl in clothes that looked like she wore yesterday
is sitting at the bar. When Joseph saw Naomi it was like looking at Death
herself, he remembered this from Natalie’s visions of his future. This is the
same girl he is talking to when the Angel attacks. Joseph freezes up, he should’ve
saw this coming. He is careful to approach her, his hand near his waist and gun
holster just in case the vision starts coming true, hopefully with the police
outside it would detour Thomas.
“Hi, I’m
Officer Pierre with the NYPD. I’ve been assigned to escort your.” Joseph says
trying to be calming but there is an uncertain rush in his voice as if he is
trying to get her out as fast as possible that Naomi picks out, and she isn’t
sure what to think of it.
“Uh, I already
gave my statement. What’s going on? I asked them and they said they can’t tell
me until, well I guess you got here.” She’s annoyed by the process.
“Honestly this
isn’t about statements but your own safety.” Joseph said, he takes a seat at
the bar she was at so he didn’t have to speak so loudly and draw any more
attention from the staff. Turns so his body faces her and with one arm on the
bar stool he places his head in his hand. He takes a look at her noticing she
looks tired from what she looked like from Naomi’s description of a young
female, her clothes reeked and they didn’t fit what one would consider a strip
club.
“You look like
crap, I don’t think you’ve been home in days. Your clothes have stains and
smells from them tha—“ Joseph tried to detective his way into convincing her to
come with him but got a slap to the face instead.
“What the fuck,
I ain’t like these girls. I’m the fucking chef. Of course I smell like crap
cause I’ve been cooking all day.” Naomi yells at him, but he was correct she
didn’t go home last night and slept in the back office. She didn’t want to go
home knowing that the weirdo is living in her building. The police didn’t tell
her everything only that the stalker from yesterday is still looking for her,
she doesn’t know that Ryan is the Angel of Death. No one wanted to nor had the
guts to tell her.
“Come with me
and I’ll fill you in. I’m assuming you haven’t been told much.” Joseph said,
she looked at Joseph and around the bar.
“Fine but I
want something decent to eat.” She admitted. Joseph and Naomi head out of the
Fox Tail Club, getting into the unmarked police car.
In a warehouse
across from the Fox Tail strip club, the Angel of Death known as Thomas
Worthington watches the two of them get into Joseph’s car. A scornful look upon
his face, as he repacks his white Van, altering his plans to save Naomi from
the man who took her away from him.
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