The Charlie Parker Collection 1

by John Connolly

  Hyams had killed Catherine and Granger, that much seemed certain. At a guess, I reckoned that he had watched for the sheriff’s return and followed him into his house. If Hyams had a key to the sheriff’s house which, since he was a neighbour and a trusted citizen, was a likely possibility, Hyams could have listened to the messages on the sheriff’s machine himself and, through that, could have learned of Catherine Demeter’s location. Catherine Demeter was dead before the sheriff returned: Granger’s body had not decayed to the same extent as Demeter’s.

  Hyams might even have erased the messages but he couldn’t be certain that Granger had not picked them up by remote contact through a touch-tone phone. Either way, Hyams couldn’t take any chances and acted, probably knocking the sheriff unconscious before cuffing him and then taking him to the Dane house, where he had already killed Catherine Demeter. The sheriff’s car had probably been dumped or driven to another town and left somewhere it wouldn’t attract undue attention, at least for the time being.

  The use of the Dane house pointed to another part of the puzzle: Connell Hyams was almost certainly Adelaide Modine’s accomplice in the killings, the man for whom William Modine had been hanged. That raised the question of why he had been forced to act now and I believed that I was close to an answer to that too, although it was a possibility that made me sick to my stomach.

  Hyams’s house was dark when I arrived. There was no other car parked near by but I kept my gun in my hand as I approached the door. The thought of facing Bobby Sciorra in the darkness made my skin crawl and my hands shook as I used the keys I had taken from Hyams’s body to open the door.

  Inside, the house was silent. I went from room to room, my heart pounding, my finger on the trigger of the gun. The house was empty. There was no sign of Bobby Sciorra.

  I went through to Hyams’s office, pulled the curtains and turned on the desk light. His computer was password-protected but a man like Hyams would have to keep hard copies of all his documents. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for, except that it was something that would connect Hyams to the Ferrera family. The connection seemed almost absurd and I was tempted to give up the search and return to Haven and explain it all to Martin and Agent Ross. The Ferreras were many things, but they were not the consorts of child-killers.

  The key to Hyams’s filing cabinets was also on the set I had taken from his body. I worked fast, ignoring local files and others that seemed irrelevant or unrelated. There were no files for the Trust, which seemed extraordinary until I remembered his office in town and my heart sank. If the Trust files were not kept in the house, there was a possibility that other files were not here either. If that was the case, the search could prove fruitless.

  In the end, I almost passed over the link and only some half-remembered Italian phrases caused me to stop and consider it. It was a rental agreement for a warehouse property in Flushing, Queens, signed by Hyams on behalf of a company called Circe. The agreement was over five years old and had been made with a firm called Mancino Inc. Mancino, I remembered, meant ‘left-handed’ in Italian. It derived from another word meaning deceitful. It was Sonny Ferrera’s idea of a joke: Sonny was left-handed and Mancino Inc. was one of a number of paper companies established by Sonny in the early part of the decade when he had not yet been reduced to the level of a sick, dangerous joke in the Ferrera operation.

  I left the house and started driving. As I reached the town limits, I saw a pick-up by the side of the road. Two figures sat in the back, drinking beer from cans enclosed in brown paper bags, while a third stood leaning against the cab with his hands in his pockets. The headlights identified the standing man as Clete and one of the seated figures as Gabe. The third was a thin, bearded man whose face I didn’t recognise. I caught Clete’s eye as I passed and saw Gabe lean towards him and start talking, but Clete just raised a hand. As I drove away I could see him staring after me, caught in the headlights of the pick-up, a dark shadow against the light. I felt almost sorry for him: Haven’s chances of becoming Little Tokyo had just taken a terminal beating.

  I didn’t call Martin until I reached Charlottesville.

  ‘It’s Parker,’ I said. ‘Anybody near you?’

  ‘I’m in my office and you’re in deep shit. Why’d you run out like that? Ross is here and wants all our asses, but yours especially. Man, when Earl Lee gets back there’s gonna be hell to pay.’

  ‘Listen to me. Granger’s dead. So is Catherine Demeter. I think Hyams killed them.’

  ‘Hyams?’ Martin almost shrieked the name. ‘The lawyer? You’re out of your mind.’

  ‘Hyams is dead too.’ It was starting to sound like a sick joke, except I wasn’t laughing. ‘He tried to kill me out at the Dane house. The bodies of Granger and Catherine Demeter were dumped in the cellar there. I found them and Hyams tried to lock me in. There was some shooting and Hyams died. There’s another player, the guy who took out the woman in the medical centre.’ I didn’t want to bring Sciorra’s name into it, not yet.

  Martin was silent for a moment. ‘You gotta come in. Where are you?’

  ‘It’s not finished. You’ve got to hold them off for me.’

  ‘I’m not holding anyone off. This town is turning into a morgue because of you and now you’re a suspect in I don’t know how many murders. Come in. You got enough trouble coming to you already.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that. Listen to me. Hyams killed Demeter to prevent her contacting Granger. I think Hyams was Adelaide Modine’s accomplice in the child-killings. If that’s the case, if he escaped, then she could have escaped too. He could have rigged her death. He had access to her dental records through his father’s surgery. He could have switched a set of records from another woman, maybe a migrant worker, maybe someone snatched from another town, I don’t know. But something made Catherine Demeter run. Something sent her back here. I think she saw her. I think she saw Adelaide Modine because there’s no other reason why she would have come back here, why she would have contacted Granger after all these years away.’

  There was silence at the other end of the phone. ‘Ross looks like a volcano in a linen suit. He’s going to be on to you. He got your plates from your motel registration.’

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘You say Hyams was involved?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘I had Burns check our files. Didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Earl Lee has . . . had the file relating to the killings. He used to check it out every so often. Hyams came looking for it, day before yesterday.’

  ‘My guess is that, if you find it, any photos will be gone. I think Hyams probably searched the sheriff’s house for it. He had to eliminate any traces of Adelaide Modine, anything that might link her to her new identity.’

  It is hard to disappear. A trail of paper, of public and private records, follows us from birth. For most of us, they define what we are to the State, the Government, the law. But there are ways to disappear. Obtain a new birth certificate, maybe from a death index or by using someone else’s birth name and DOB, and age the cert by carrying it around in your shoe for a week. Apply for a library card and, from that, obtain a voter’s registration card. Head for the nearest DMV clerk, flash the birth certificate and the VRC, and you now have a driver’s license. It’s a domino effect, each step based on the validity of the documents obtained in the preceding step.

  The easiest way of all is to take on another’s identity, someone who won’t be missed, someone from the margins. My guess was that, with Hyams’s help, Adelaide Modine took on the identity of the girl who burned to death in a Virginia ruin. ‘There’s more,’ said Martin. ‘There was a separate file on the Modines. The photos from that are all gone as well.’

  ‘Could Hyams have got access to those files?’

  I could hear Martin sigh at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Sure,’ he said eventually. ‘He was the town lawyer. He was trusted by everyone.’

  ‘Check the motels again. I r
eckon you’ll find Catherine Demeter’s belongings in one of them. There might be something there.’

  ‘Man, you gotta come back here, sort this out. There’s a lot of bodies here and your name is connected with all of them. I can’t do any more than I’ve done already.’

  ‘Just do what you can. I’m not coming in.’

  I hung up and dialled another number. ‘Yeah,’ answered a voice.

  ‘Angel. It’s Bird.’

  ‘Where the fuck have you been? Things are going down here. Are you on the cellphone? Call me back on a land line.’

  I rang him back seconds later from a call-box outside a convenience store.

  ‘Some of the old man’s goons have picked up Pili Pilar. They’re holding him until Bobby Sciorra gets back from some trip. It’s bad. He’s being held in isolation at the Ferrera place – anyone talks to him and they get it in the head. Only Bobby gets access to him.’

  ‘Did they get Sonny?’

  ‘No, he’s still out there, but he’s alone now. He’s gonna have to sort whatever it is out with his old man.’

  ‘I’m in trouble, Angel.’ I explained to him briefly what had taken place. ‘I’m coming back but I need something from you and Louis.’

  ‘Just ask, man.’

  I gave him the address of the warehouse. ‘Watch the place. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.’

  I didn’t know how long it would take them to start tracking me. I drove as far as Richmond and parked the Mustang in a long-term parking bay. Then I made some calls. For $1500 I bought silence and a flight on a small plane from a private airfield back to the city.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘You sure you wanna be dropped here?’ The cab driver was a huge man, his hair lank with sweat which dribbled down his cheeks and over the rolls of fat in his neck, eventually losing itself in the greasy collar of his shirt. He seemed to fill the whole front of the cab. The door looked too small for him to have entered through. He gave the impression that he had lived and eaten in the cab for so long that he had grown inside it, to the point where it was no longer possible for him to leave: the cab was his home, his castle, and his bulk gave the impression that it would be his tomb.

  ‘I’m sure,’ I replied.

  ‘This is a tough area.’

  ‘That’s okay. I have tough friends.’

  The Mancino wine warehouse was one of a number of similar premises that lined one side of a long, ill-lit street west of the Northern Boulevard in Flushing. It was a red-brick building, its name reduced to a white, flaking shadow below the edge of its roof. Wire panels covered the windows on both the ground and upper levels. There were no visible lights on the walls, leaving the area between the gate and the main building in almost total darkness.

  On the other side of the street stood the entrance to a large yard filled with storage depots and railroad containers. The ground inside was pitted with ponds of filthy water and discarded pallets. I saw a mongrel dog, its ribs almost bursting through its fur, tearing at something in the dim light of the lot’s filthy spotlights.

  As I stepped from the cab, headlights flashed briefly from the alleyway by the warehouse. Seconds later, as the cab pulled away, Angel and Louis emerged from the black Chevy van, Angel carrying a heavy-looking training bag, Louis immaculate in a black leather coat, a black suit and a black polo-neck.

  Angel screwed up his face as he drew nearer. It wasn’t hard to see why. My suit was torn and covered with mud and dirt from the encounter with Hyams in the Dane house. My arm had begun to bleed again and the right cuff of my shirt was a deep red colour. I ached all over and I was tired of death.

  ‘You look good,’ said Angel. ‘Where’s the dance?’

  I looked towards the Mancino warehouse. ‘In there. Have I missed anything?’

  ‘Not here. Louis just got back from Ferrera’s place, though.’

  ‘Bobby Sciorra arrived there about an hour ago by chopper,’ said Louis. ‘Reckon him and Pili are having a real heart-to-heart.’

  I nodded. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

  The warehouse was surrounded by a high brick wall topped with barbed wire and spiked fencing. The gate, inset slightly as the wall curved inwards at the entrance, was also wire-topped and solid except for a gap where a heavy lock and chain linked its two halves together. While Louis lounged semi-discreetly nearby, Angel removed a small, custom-built drill from his bag and inserted the bit into the lock. He pressed the trigger and a high-pitched grinding sound seemed to fill the night. Instantly, every dog in the vicinity started to bark.

  ‘Shit, Angel, you got a fuckin’ whistle built into that thing?’ hissed Louis. Angel ignored him and moments later the lock fell open.

  We entered and Angel gingerly removed the lock and placed it inside the gate. He replaced the chain so that to a casual observer it would still appear secure if, oddly, locked from the inside.

  The warehouse dated from the thirties but would have appeared functional even then. Old doors at the right and left sides had been sealed shut, leaving only one way in at the front. Even the fire exit at the back had been welded in place. The security lights, which might once have lit up the yard, now no longer functioned and the illumination from the street-lights did not penetrate the darkness here.

  Angel went to work on the lock with a selection of skeleton keys, a flashlight in his mouth, and less than a minute later we were in, lighting our heavy Mags as we went. A small kiosk, which was probably once occupied by a security guard or watchman when the building was in use, stood directly inside the door. Empty shelves stretched along the walls of the room, paralleled by similar shelving through the centre creating two aisles. The shelves were separated into alcoves, each sufficient to hold a bottle of wine. The floor was stone. This had originally been the display area where visitors could examine the stock. Below, in the cellars, was where the cases were kept. At the far end of the room stood a raised office, reached by three stairs to the right.

  Beside the small flight of stairs up to the office, a larger staircase descended down. There was also an old freight elevator, unlocked. Angel stepped in and pulled the lever, and the lift descended a foot or two. He brought it back to its original level, stepped out again and raised an eyebrow at me.

  We started down the stairs. There were four flights, the equivalent of two storeys, but there were no other floors between the shop floor and the cellars. At the base was another locked door, this one wooden with a glass window through which the flashlight revealed the arches of the cellar. I left Angel to the lock. It took him seconds to open the door. He looked ill-at-ease entering the cellars. The training bag appeared suddenly heavy in his hand.

  ‘Want me to take that for a while?’ asked Louis.

  ‘When I’m that old you’ll be feeding me through a straw,’ replied Angel. Although the cellars were cool, he licked at sweat on his upper lip.

  ‘Practically feeding you through a straw already,’ muttered the voice from behind us.

  In the basement, a series of curved, cave-like alcoves stretched away before us. Each had bars running vertically down from ceiling to floor, with a gate set in the middle. They were the old storage bins for the wine. They were obviously disused, strewn with litter and old packaging. The flashlight’s beams caught the edge of the floor of one bin that differed from the others. It was the one nearest us on the right and had a coating of earth where the cement floor had been removed. Its gate stood ajar.

  Our footsteps echoed around the stone walls as we approached. Inside, the floor was clean and the earth neatly raked. In one corner was a green metal table with two slits on either side through which ran leather restrainers. In another corner stood a large, industrial-sized roll of what appeared to be plastic sheeting.

  Two layers of shelving ran around the walls. They were empty except for a bundle, tightly wrapped in plastic, which had been tucked in against the far wall. I walked towards it and the beam of the flashlight caught denim and a green check shirt; a pair of
small shoes and a mop of hair; a discoloured face whose skin had cracked and burst and a pair of open eyes, the corneae milky and cloudy. The smell of decay was strong, but dulled somewhat by the plastic. I recognised the clothing. I had found Evan Baines, the child who had disappeared from the Barton estate.

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ I heard Angel say. Louis was silent.

  I drew closer to the body, checking the fingers and face. Apart from natural decay, the body was undamaged and the boy’s clothing appeared undisturbed. Evan Baines had not been tortured before he died but there was some heavier discoloration at his temple and there was dried blood in his ear.

  The fingers of his left hand were splayed against his chest but his small right hand had formed into a tightly closed fist.

  ‘Angel. Come here. Bring the bag.’

  He stood beside me and I saw the anger and despair in his eyes.

  ‘It’s Evan Baines,’ I said. ‘Did you bring the masks?’

  He bent down and took out two dust masks and a bottle of Aramis aftershave. He sprinkled the aftershave on each mask, handed one to me and put the other one on himself. Then he handed me a pair of plastic gloves. Louis stood further back but didn’t take a mask. Angel held the flashlight’s beam on the body.

  I took my penknife and sliced through the plastic by the child’s right hand. Even through the mask the stench grew stronger and there was a hiss of escaping gas.

  I took the blunt edge of the knife and prised at the boy’s fist. The skin broke and a nail came loose.

  ‘Hold the light steady, dammit,’ I hissed. I could see something small and blue in the boy’s grip. I prised again, heedless now of the damage I was causing. I had to know. I had to find the answer to what had happened here. Eventually, the object came loose and fell to the floor. I bent to pick it up and examined it by the light of my own flashlight. It was a shard of blue china.

  Angel had begun scanning the far corners of the room with his flashlight as I examined the shard and then had left the room. As I clutched the piece of china, I heard the sound of his drill and then his voice calling us from above. We went back up the stairs and found him in a small room, little bigger than a closet, almost directly above the room where the boy lay. Three linked video-cassette recorders were stacked one above the other on some shelving and a thin cable snaked through a hole at the base of the wall and disappeared into the floor of the warehouse. On one of the VCRs the seconds ticked off inexorably until Angel stilled them.