The Final Deception

by Heather Graham

  “Yeah. Not to worry. I intend to get there alive.”

  “Kieran is at the pub with her family, a host of other people, and an FBI agent.”

  “But why there? Why the hell did the kid go there?” Craig asked.

  “They have good shepherd’s pie?” Mike suggested, and then groaned slightly at the look Craig gave him. “You’ve heard from his counselor, from his friends, that John Nicholson is a good kid—no threat. And we thought we were going to have to look for him. Go figure! Kieran found him for us.”

  “You’re right,” Craig said, swerving around a slow-moving Cadillac.

  “Okay, then,” Mike said.

  Craig managed a smile; he was still anxious.

  “Right, and we were just discussing the fact everyone had thought Raoul Nicholson was a pillar of the community, just as everyone thinks his kids are amazing, especially coming from the home they came from. One homicidal kid, two homicidal kids...”

  “And Kieran won’t leave the pub. Come on, give her some credit.”

  He did. He gave her all the credit in the world.

  “Poor dog,” Mike muttered suddenly.

  “What?”

  “You’re at work all day, she’s at work all day...better bring him some shepherd’s pie when you do go home tonight.”

  “Mike—”

  “Shut up, yeah, I know. Hey, remember, I’m the one who taught you the ropes!”

  “Yes, and that’s why I’m not letting an old man drive,” Craig murmured.

  He moved fast until they got to the tunnel. Then he chaffed all way through.

  Neither he nor Mike talked any more.

  Eventually they arrived. He barely had the car in Park before he was exiting the vehicle and hurrying for the entrance to the pub.

  When he entered, Mike on his tail, he saw Kieran almost immediately.

  And Milo DeLuca.

  And John Nicholson.

  Kieran saw him and stood quickly, pointing his way. John, across from her in the little curved booth, rose as well, turning to look.

  He was a handsome kid, better looking than his mother or his father. He stood at about six foot one, tall and straight, and while he looked a little uneasy, his eyes were steady on Craig when Kieran suggested they might want to sit down alone somewhere together.

  The table where they’d been sitting showed the remnants of their dinner. He thanked Kieran and asked her if she’d order meals for him and Mike.

  Then, he looked around and saw another table at the back of the restaurant area that was empty. He lifted a hand to John Nicholson, indicating the way.

  At first John kept trying to explain why he’d tried to see Kieran first. “My father said she was a truly decent human being. Of course, with my father, that might have meant she simply wasn’t evil. But I’m concerned for others, and concerned for my father. I didn’t just walk into a police station because I figured you had to be suspicious of me, my brother, or my mother. I want to help, but I really don’t know how. If you spoke to Thomas, you know we both came of age and got the hell out. Don’t get me wrong. I left home, but I did talk to my parents, and I do care about my dad. In my mind, he should have been locked up a long time ago. And my mother...well, you know, her wedding vows are sacred, a wife’s duty is to protect her husband. I know he believed there was a real voice from someplace he considered to be on high that spoke to him.”

  “Do you know how the voice spoke to him?” Craig asked. “He had to have had some kind of help. There is no way your father could have escaped without help.”

  “We didn’t know he heard voices telling him to kill witches until he was arrested. I asked him...after he’d been arrested. His lawyer has tried so hard to be helpful, convincing him he needs to make the jury understand the voices were in his head. But Dad’s giving that man a really hard time. Or was. Didn’t want an insanity defense. He’s not insane, he’s justified, trying to save humanity, and if that means he goes to prison, and they throw away the key, so be it.” He paused for a minute. “And my father, in general population...well, I doubt he’d last a week.”

  “What we need to know is if there’s anyplace your father might be hiding out,” Craig said.

  “You’ve checked my mother’s house?” John asked.

  “We’ll pay her a visit again tomorrow, but our boss had her come into the office,” Craig said. “She swears she knew nothing about him trying to escape, even though she had seen him that day. There has been an agent watching her building since this all happened.”

  “My mother wouldn’t know. She’s like a 1950s housewife, or a pre–WWII stay-at-home mother, do whatever the husband, the breadwinner, says,” John told them. He took a deep breath. “I don’t know how she would have survived if our attorney wasn’t so great. He got my father’s business sold, and he set up a trust so she’d be okay with the money from the sale.”

  “Are you going to go and stay with her?” Mike asked. “Where have you been staying?” he asked, frowning. “They said you left after your last classes Friday.”

  “There’s a hostel in Hell’s Kitchen. Gives me a bed and a shower as cheaply as one could ever hope for in New York,” John said.

  “Why didn’t you tell your brother? Do you think he’d be helping your father?” Craig asked.

  John shook his head. “No, if someone helped my dad, it wasn’t my brother, me, or my mother.”

  “What about the other church members?” Craig asked. “No one knows who they are.”

  “Because they probably ran under rocks like scared rodents,” John said.

  “You’ve only been gone from home for four years. Don’t you remember anyone?” Mike persisted.

  John shook his head. “You had to be an adult to be a member of True Life. Able to swear yourself that you believed in all the tenets. Children were kept at home—with the women, by the way—while the men decided the doctrine and everything else. Women had church, but it was separate. There is no Sunday as in Christianity, or a Saturday as in Judaism. Every day could be a church day. Anyplace could be a church. Children were to learn to be obedient, and when they were ready, they could join the church.”

  “But by eighteen?” Mike asked.

  “I was never ready to swear to the tenets,” John said. “I fought with my parents through high school. I had to come home, do homework, do chores—never go out with friends, never go to a school dance, never socialize...but they couldn’t make me say what I didn’t believe. They knew I would take off, just like Thomas. But in my father’s misguided mind, my brother and I would one day see the light and come back.” He winced. “That’s the thing. This is all real to him.”

  “Did he tell you how his voices came to him?” Craig asked.

  John nodded. “Sometimes, the higher power would use a cell phone. Sometimes, he’d just hear the voice in his head while taking a shower or something. Or he’d see clues.”

  “He’d see clues?” Craig said, surprised. This was the first he was hearing about visual clues.

  “He told me one time there was an arrow in the dirt right outside the apartment building. It pointed to a park. He went to the park.” He hesitated, obviously pained by what he was about to say. “That’s where he saw Sally Hendriks, the second woman he killed. He always knew what the voices and the clues meant. He was...on a mission.”

  Food came for Craig and Mike, and they took turns eating and asking questions. Over coffee they learned John Nicholson was convinced his father had been hiding out since he’d escaped. He hadn’t killed again.

  “You had to really know my father and how deeply he believed. He wouldn’t have killed a man as he did. When he first heard the voice, the voice told him there was no reason to inflict pain on the flesh. The voice told him exactly how to kill. My father wasn’t into blood and gore, just ridding the evil soul of the human vestment. That’s
exactly how he described the human body. It was a vestment, nothing more. And if an evil soul was going to be purged, it had to be by fire.”

  “What about the eyes and the tongue?” Mike asked.

  John shrugged. “See no evil, speak no evil.”

  “What about hear no evil?” Craig asked.

  John shook his head. “The ears burned, I guess. My father’s method of killing was part of his mission, and while the news hasn’t had many details about the second man killed on Saturday, he wasn’t killed in the same manner. I know that from what no one is saying, and of course, reporters got wind of a body quickly—and there was no fire. I’m not saying my father wouldn’t kill again and that it isn’t a very real and desperate thing he needs to be locked up again, I’m just saying he would only kill someone as part of his mission. He would never kill someone who was presumed innocent.”

  Craig looked over at Mike; they had heard that many times now.

  Most likely, it was true.

  But who the hell was helping him, and who had killed Mayhew and Blom?

  A member of the church?

  Maybe.

  Or maybe just someone who knew Raoul Nicholson was a man who could be used.

  Before the evening was over, Craig convinced John to call his brother, Thomas. And Thomas convinced John to come and stay with him.

  Mike would drive John to his brother’s, and Milo would drop off Craig and Kieran.

  Not even Milo spoke much in the car. When they reached the apartment, late as it was, Kieran started out by insisting they take Ruff for a walk.

  Craig felt guilty then about keeping the dog. Maybe it was wrong if the only life they could give him meant he’d be shut in the apartment a lot of the time. But Ruff was happy to see them both, running in circles, jumping up and into his arms and then into Kieran’s arms.

  “Sure, we’ll take him for a walk,” he said, gathering the little blue bags they’d gotten for cleaning up after their pet. Kieran had the leash. They went downstairs.

  Even the Dimitri family bodega was closed for the night.

  They said good-night to Milo, who was being replaced by Special Agent Lena Gulden, who would be watching the apartment building through the night.

  As they continued with the dog, Kieran asked, “Isn’t it a waste, to have an agent watching the building when you’re home?”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t lying to you. They’re not just watching out for you—or us—as a protective detail. Nicholson could try to reach you just as his son did tonight.” She didn’t reply, and he asked, “John Nicholson was just at the pub tonight when you got there?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “He was at the pub when Milo and I got there.”

  He didn’t know why he sensed she was holding something back. She was telling the truth; Milo had said as much to him.

  “So, there are two killers,” she said.

  “It would seem so.”

  “Someone close to Nicholson, someone who could...know him well and get to him when he was being held pending trial.”

  “That’s not so terribly hard. Innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Then...someone he saw when he was in jail. Of course, that would include me, his attorney, and his wife.”

  “He talked to John on the phone. We don’t know who else he might have spoken to. And it’s frustrating. His church had to be the most secretive secret society I’ve ever heard about.”

  “I wonder if I should talk to Amy again.”

  “Maybe. The apartment was searched the night Raoul Nicholson was brought in, and nothing was found other than his stash of gasoline cans, lighters, and knives. The knives had been cleaned, but he hadn’t used enough bleach. We know exactly what he used to cut out tongues.”

  “And the eyes?”

  Craig winced slightly. “A grapefruit spoon.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I kind of wish I hadn’t asked. And was it the same with Charles Mayhew?”

  “Dr. Layton said the method of death was the same, but... I wonder. The body had burned. Thanks to the security guard, Joey Catalano, the fire was put out quickly. I don’t know if he’s been able to determine if there were any details at all different. I’ll have a talk with him sometime tomorrow. It’s going to be a long day for me. Mike and I want to go for breakfast at Annie’s Sunrise, and see if we can figure if any of the weekday regulars knew him better than to say only, ‘Good morning, how are you?’ Monday to Friday. We want to get back over to Amy Nicholson’s apartment. She just might be helping him somehow. What else is that kind of good, obedient, and loyal wife to do? And check in on any task force notes, and see if Layton or the crime scene techs can give us anything more.”

  “What about that apartment building?” she queried.

  He smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. Egan has people watching that building, as well.”

  “Is that what the FBI does—watch?” she teased.

  “Surveillance is tedious. But we all do it, all pay our dues. Speaking of which, let me have a little baggie. Ruff has just paid a few ‘dues.’”

  She laughed softly; he picked up after Ruff, and they turned back, both tired and ready for bed.

  “What I was getting at,” he said, “is I’m probably going to be late, and even with a man on the door—”

  “You don’t want me to be at the apartment by myself. Some shifty-eyed person might drop from the sky and come in on the fire escape. But you don’t want me to have to spend the evening at the pub, either, where everything is always perfectly managed whether I’m there or not. Not to worry. Danny was off tonight. I think he slept all day. So Danny can hang with me tomorrow night. He has all kinds of theories anyway, and he can enlighten me on serial killers the world over while we wait for you to get home. It will be great.”

  He smiled and nodded. “Go figure. I didn’t ask to speak with John Nicholson when I called down to the school because I didn’t want to forewarn him and have him disappear. And he just walks into the pub to talk to you.”

  “Yep, he just walked into the pub to talk to me.”

  “Still, suspicious.”

  “Suspicious? Why?”

  “Oh, I’m not suspicious of him. I’m suspicious of you.”

  She smiled and went on her toes to briefly kiss his lips. “He was in the pub when I came in. And that, my love, is the absolute truth. He was already there when we arrived.”

  “You would tell me if anything made you uneasy, right?”

  “I would,” she promised. “I told you, Raoul Nicholson is not out to get me.”

  “I believe you,” he said. “Not that any of us really knows his mind, but...”

  “I didn’t meet the older boy, but from what I understand, he just wanted out—big time. He got out. But even so, even knowing what he knows, he doesn’t hate his father. He hates what he’s done, but he—and John—believe their father is really sick.”

  “I’m not so afraid of Raoul Nicholson.”

  “Then, who are you afraid of?”

  “Whoever killed Charles Mayhew and Olav Blom,” he said quietly.

  “Well, I have my bodyguards,” she said, and added, “and I have you.” She reached up, running her fingers along his collar, her fingertips just touching the flesh at his throat. She smiled, moving on to run her knuckles against his cheek. Her voice was husky when she said, “Let’s put junior here to bed and head on up ourselves, huh?”

  He caught her hand and kissed her fingers lightly.

  “At least we can agree on something,” he said.

  She stooped, scratching Ruff on the top of his head and promising the dog, “I’ll come home for you first tomorrow and spirit you right into Declan’s office. But no leaving Declan any presents, okay?”

  Ruff let out a little woof, as if in agreement, wagged his tail, and leaped back up into Kieran�
��s arms.

  “I guess I’m walking him home this way!” she said. “Lazy boy!”

  * * *

  Kieran wasn’t sure why she woke early, but she did. She was comfortably curled against Craig.

  He woke at the drop of a dime, because of his training, or just his personality, she wasn’t sure. She eased away from him as carefully as she could. He could sleep at least another forty-five minutes or so before getting up to start his day.

  She was drawn to the window and walked to it, carefully pulling the curtain back to peek her face around.

  The morning was not promising as far as suggesting it would become a beautiful spring day. The sun was struggling to come through dark clouds that hovered over the city, casting a dismal gray over buildings and streets alike. Ah, well, rain. It did do that now and then.

  Her eyes were drawn to the corner, and it seemed her heart skipped a beat.

  There was a man on the corner again. A man in a trench coat and a low-brimmed hat.

  John Nicholson... John had admitted to trying to reach her. Had she asked him if he’d been standing on her corner, watching the apartment? Surely she had. And she knew that he’d been dropped off at his brother’s apartment last night.

  So?

  Was this John again? Or was everything about him a lie?

  Or was this a different man...someone else watching her, someone...

  The rain began with a sudden, blinding onslaught against the glass.

  Peering through the downpour, she saw that the man was gone. And as she looked out the window, she wondered if she had just seen him there because she’d expected someone to be there, or was someone else watching her, trying to reach her?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ANNIE’S SUNRISE WAS a busy place, and Craig figured it probably had a lot to do with Annie Sullivan herself. She was cheerful and charming behind the register, she helped her servers, and she walked along the booths that sat by the plate-glass windows to the street, seeing if her customers wanted more coffee, and if everything was all right.

  Craig and Mike had been there about twenty minutes, and they’d watched her chat enthusiastically, pour coffee and help serve, and then she joined them at their table. She kept her face animated, as if they were discussing a sports team or a new play on Broadway. “The older woman by the cash register with the white-blond hair and the nurse’s uniform. She’s Candy Dryer, and she talked to Raoul Nicholson almost every day. He’d sit next to her and eat at least three times a week. Other people who came in ahead of him seemed to know that was his seat. Next to her is Xavier Green, and he talked to Raoul Nicholson on a regular basis, as well. The other person I see here today who spoke with him frequently is Bethany Sears, and she’s next to Xavier at the counter now. They’re all nice people. I don’t know whether to introduce you, or...”