She was the only one on 9th Street. The tires crunched the sleet that was beginning to accumulate on the road. No salt trucks or plows bothered to work on dead ends while the main roads still needed tending to. She pulled up along the curb and shut her headlights off just before rolling to a stop one house down from Darville’s place.
The street was quiet. No traffic. No one outside walking pets. No one salting their driveways or shoveling their stoops. Even the streetlight at the end of the block wasn’t working. It was as if life had ceased to exist on this dead-end road. Nothing was moving.
Except for the light that was on in James Darville’s house.
Susan grabbed her phone and dialed.
“Cortlandt SP. This is Trooper Carson.”
“This is Adler. I need you to roll a unit to 356 9th Street. That address is an active crime scene in an open investigation associated with this morning’s 10-38 upstate. There are lights on inside the house. Could be nothing, but I’m going to check it out and would rather have a unit rolling in case I need it.”
“Ten-four,” the trooper replied. “Unit rolling.”
“No lights. No sirens. Come in quiet. I don’t want to spook them.”
“You got it.”
She hung up the phone, shut off the engine, and quietly stepped out of the car. The wind coming off the river was biting. She unclipped the snap on her holster and hurried toward the house, extracting her Beretta and holding it down toward the ground.
Susan peeked through the window next to the porch, but her vision was blocked by dirty blinds. If she remembered correctly, she was looking into the living room, which would make it the kitchen light that was on. She listened for a moment, trying to hear footsteps or talking or movement of any kind, but there was just the quiet of the street and the wind howling off the Hudson.
The ground was soft and muddy from the rain, but it was beginning to freeze, making her footsteps crunch as she worked her way toward the back of the house. In the silence, each step sounded like a small explosion. The kitchen was in the rear, and as she turned the corner into the backyard, she could see two windows fully illuminated as well as a shadow of movement beyond the shades that had been drawn.
Someone was definitely inside.
She carefully climbed the back stairs and studied the back door. Glass had been punched out of the pane closest to the knob and dead bolt. She held her Beretta up at her chest now, poised and ready if the situation warranted such force. She held her breath, turned the filthy brass knob, and pushed.
The lights went out.
Blackness.
Before Susan’s eyes could adjust or she could pull back from her position, the door she was leaning on slammed shut, knocking into her and sending her down the three steps she’d just climbed. The ground was cold and wet as she scrambled to her feet, ran back up the stairs, and burst into the house, gun drawn and ready.
“State police!” she cried. “Stop right there!”
She saw a shadow slip through the kitchen doorway and immediately pursued. What had been a quiet, serene setting only moments before was now chaos and mayhem. The person was running, tripping over furniture, and grunting.
“I said stop!”
The figure burst through the front door, hopped down the steps, and ran across the street. Susan followed, pushing the front door open in time to see movement disappearing along the shadows of the house on the opposite side of the road. She scurried down the steps as the trooper unit was pulling onto the street.
“This way!” she cried.
The unit sped up and came to a stop next to her.
“We have one suspect on foot. Just ran behind that house. I’ll go around on the north side, and you flank him on the south.”
“Ten-four.”
The trooper jumped out and ran around the dark house on the south side. Susan crept around the north end with her back against the siding, her coat sliding along, making too much noise.
The neighbor’s yard had no light. Susan got into her shooting position and scanned the area as best she could, trying to pick out something, anything, but it was too difficult to see. The wind was all she could hear.
Movement.
Running.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bush sway, and as she turned in that direction, she caught a glimpse of her suspect hurdling a small fence and running into an open area that led to the banks of the Hudson River.
“He’s heading toward the river!” she yelled.
She could see him now; the lights along this section of the Hudson were lit as part of the perimeter grounds of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. They’d soon be at the restricted area, and Susan knew that if the suspect kept running, he’d trip sensors. Once he did that, she’d no longer have to worry about pursuing. The highly trained plant guards would take him down in a matter of seconds. And inside the perimeter of the plant, the use of deadly force was always authorized.
“State police!” she screamed as loud as she could over the wind coming off the water. “Last warning. Stop running or I will open fire!”
She slowed down and got into a shooting position. Behind her, she could hear the trooper approaching, his breath heavy as the cold air stabbed at his lungs. When he reached her, he got down on one knee and aimed his weapon as well.
“Stop!”
Spotlights suddenly came on, and Susan pulled her head away before she was blinded by their intensity. She held up her hand and squinted enough to see the side of a building that had been hidden in the darkness. It was the power plant’s warehouse structure.
The suspect stopped running, caught in the light, confused and panicked.
“Put your hands up!” Susan instructed as she and the trooper approached.
The suspect put his hands up.
“Keep your hands up, and get on your knees!”
The suspect fell to his knees.
Susan holstered her weapon while the trooper kept his aimed and ready. She pulled cuffs from her back pocket and opened them.
“No sudden moves,” she said.
“Okay.”
She could hear guards from the plant approaching and pulled her shield out from beneath her coat.
“What’s going on down there?” a voice asked from behind the lights.
“State police!” Susan shouted in return. “Suspect in custody. We’re good!”
She took the man’s wrist and twisted it around, placing it behind his back while fastening the first cuff. She did the same with the second. When he was secure, she frisked him. He was clean. No weapons. Nothing from the house. No ID. But as she turned him around and saw his face, she knew she didn’t need his ID. She recognized him from earlier that day.
It was David Hill.
Rebecca’s brother.
11
Susan walked David back to her car, a tight grip on his arm, pushing him forward. As was procedure, the trooper walked behind them in case assistance was needed. It was always easier to step up and run forward or draw your weapon at a target in front of you. His position was as much tactical as it was practical.
They got to the trooper’s patrol car, and she opened the back door, then pushed David inside and immediately shut it.
“I’m going to need a minute with him,” she said to the trooper. “You can wait out here or go sit in my car if you get cold.”
The trooper pulled keys from his coat. “I’ll wait here in case you need something. Start the car and run the heat. It gets chilly in there.”