Gone Cold

by Douglas Corleone

  Alden Fisk lowered himself onto the bed, folded his hands neatly in his lap, as he was apt to do. He’d always hated being interrupted. Some things, I suppose, never change.

  He turned to her. “Although I wasn’t your father, Tuesday, I was your doctor. And I cared for you very much. So when you were a toddler, and I began noticing unusual bruises on you—bruises that didn’t completely jibe with the stories your parents provided as explanations—I became incensed.” He lowered his head. “I gave it some time, however. Longer than I would have any other patient. In hindsight, longer than I should have.”

  After a brief pause he gathered his strength and looked at us. “See, I was torn about what to do. It ate at me for weeks. Ultimately, I decided to approach my mate. He told me times were tough, that things at home weren’t going so well and, by the way, Alden, mind your own bloody business.” His eyes moved to my sister. “But you, Tuesday, were my patient. And, as my patient, you were my business.”

  To speed things along I said, “So you reported your best mate to social services.”

  “That’s right, Simon. As was my duty as a physician. The process, however, wasn’t one I was entirely familiar with. I wasn’t a pediatrician, after all. I didn’t treat children. Only Tuesday as a favor to my friend.

  “Anyway, I assumed Tuesday’s parents would receive a phone call, be invited to the government offices for a conference. Maybe receive some counseling or be asked to attend a parenting course. But these were unusual circumstances, as I was later told. Because Scotland Yard, by that point, had been aware of the gangster’s illicit activities. And this incident gave them the probable cause they needed to enter his premises unannounced.”

  “And they found your friend’s stash,” I said.

  “That they did. And quite a stash it was. They arrested the gangster and the prostitute and took the child. Later, a hefty sentence was handed down to both of them. I spoke with my wife, Tatum, and we agreed we would take the child.” He looked at me. “You were only three at the time, Simon. Tuesday, an immature four. So on the day we brought her home, Tuesday became your sister.”

  I glanced over at my sister. But she wasn’t my sister. Not even a half sister. Not a sister at all. Four days after finding the only family I thought I had left, I was losing her all over again. And it stung like all hell. Because, although I hadn’t said it in thirty-plus years, I loved her. Loved the little girl she’d been, and loved even more the warm, tenderhearted, fearless woman she’d become.

  He turned to Zoey. “As time went on, Tatum began to take you to see your father at the prison. I wasn’t fond of the idea; I thought it better you didn’t know him at all. I wanted us to legally adopt you. You were still young enough that we could even hide the fact that you weren’t our biological daughter.

  “But Tatum insisted you see him, and I eventually dropped my objections. Choose your battles, and so on and so forth.”

  “What about my mother?” Zoey said.

  “A lost cause, I’m sorry to say. Her drug use became even worse in prison and last I saw her, she was wasting away to nothing.”

  “Ah, there’s Dr. Alden Fisk’s famous bedside manner,” I said.

  “You want me to sugarcoat this, Simon?” he snapped. “What’s the bloody point?”

  Zoey turned to me. “Believe me, little brother, I can handle whatever your father can dish out.”

  I stared at my father, hoping he wouldn’t be callous enough to point out the discrepancies in Zoey’s statement. He glared at her in that condescending way of his but didn’t challenge what she’d said.

  “What happened to her?” Zoey asked. “My mum, what became of her?”

  “Ultimately, she hung herself by her bedsheets and was buried in the prison cemetery.”

  Silence.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Leaving the doctor’s wife to fall in love with the gangster.”

  “If you could call it love,” he said with disgust. “He didn’t seduce Tatum out of love, he seduced her out of revenge. ‘You destroyed me family,’ he said the last time I ever saw him in prison. ‘So I am going to take yours, Alden.’

  “From that day forward, Tatum became cold to me. Slowly, she poisoned Tuesday against me as well. Then the gangster’s mates started coming round my office all hours of the day. Harassing me, telling my patients I was a quack, trying to intimidate me into writing prescriptions for them. This lasted for nearly three years. Then Tatum—your mother, Simon—started to go to work on you. Tried to poison you against me. That’s when I knew I had no choice but to take you and leave for the States.”

  My expression didn’t change.

  “Do I wish I did things somewhat differently?” he said, leaning forward. “You bet I do. But at the time, I was frightened of losing the only person I had left. I was afraid of losing you, Simon. I was afraid of losing my only son.”

  “Just how does all this fit in with Hailey’s abduction?” I said.

  “I only know bits and pieces,” he conceded. “And even those, I only came to learn recently. But I’ll tell you what I do know. A couple years after you and I left London, the gangster was released from prison. For good, this time. He’d been paroled on previous occasions, but each time he violated the conditions of that parole and was placed back behind bars. This time he was out. Officially, with no conditions. He’d served his time, you see.” His head dropped and he stared at the floor. “And once he was out he went to live with Tatum and Tuesday.”

  Zoey and I exchanged looks. So this was the “clingy” guy, the man more fatherly than Alden Fisk. Mum’s man, the one Zoey had mentioned back at the library at Gerry Gilchrist’s house.

  “After prison, the gangster became more violent than ever, I’m told. He struck your mother viciously for loving me in the first place. For ever marrying the man whom he insisted destroyed his life. He struck Tuesday whenever she dared mention your name, Simon. Finally, Tatum could take no more of it. She ran from him and changed her name.” He looked at Zoey. “Yours as well, from what I’ve heard.”

  “My name is Zoey,” she said without expression.

  “Apparently, the monster blamed me for this as well. I’d somehow destroyed his family yet again, this time from abroad. He went into a rage. Started doing more and more blow. Taking greater risks, looking for bigger scores.”

  “Still in London, though,” I said.

  “Then. But not for long. According to a source Eli Welker never disclosed to me, the gangster was watching me all that time. He hired some lowlife private detective in Providence to keep an eye on me and my son. He wanted to hurt me the way I’d hurt him, if not worse. In a coke-induced psychosis, his life became all about vengeance.” He paused. “Then, roughly ten years after we left for the States, he picked up a score so great, he could retire if he so desired. Not long after that, he supposedly started feeling the heat coming round the corner. The police were wise to him again, and he was determined not to return to prison. So he left for the States.”

  I stared at Ostermann, who remained speechless.

  “He wanted a normal life,” my father said. “A normal family. He wanted what I’d supposedly stolen. Only now he simply called it the American dream. As far as he was concerned, he’d timed things perfectly. You, Simon, had just left Rhode Island for American University in D.C. So that was where he decided to set up shop. A bar. An Irish pub, to be more specific.”

  “Terry’s,” I said, still grappling with my disbelief.

  Chapter 53

  TWELVE YEARS AGO

  Tasha’s funeral in Richmond, Virginia, is brief. Marked by a hard rain. Tasha’s parents are holding a mercy dinner at their country club after this but I’ve declined the invitation. Standing under an oversize umbrella in my only black suit, I watch the mourners head for their vehicles and try to decide how I feel about what Mr. Dunne told me earlier at the church.

  “My daughter’s death is being ruled accidental,” he said.

  I didn’t think I
’d heard him correctly. “I’m sorry?”

  “The coroner’s report will be released on Monday. I just thought you should know so that there aren’t any surprises.”

  Stunned, I looked away.

  He grabbed me firmly by the arm, insisted, “This is as much for you, Simon, as it is for Tasha. So don’t make any trouble. Tasha’s mother has already been through quite enough as it is.”

  Now, as the rain pelts my umbrella, I realize how carefully he chose his words. Tasha’s suicide is going to be ruled an accident to aid Mr. and Mrs. Dunne in avoiding any further embarrassment. But he wants me to know that he knows what’s been rattling around in my head in the days since Tasha’s death. That I blame myself for her committing suicide.

  He was suggesting that others would too.

  Well, to hell with others.

  Still, I’ve decided I’m not going to interfere. What appears on Tasha’s death certificate is meaningless to me. I know the truth. That she took her own life. And I know I’m largely to blame for it. Rather than playing the role of loving husband and supporting my wife through our most trying times, I’d decided to hate her. To accuse her.

  In the end, I unwittingly condemned her to die.

  Special Agents John Rendell and Candace West look my way and bow their heads to offer their condolences. At first I think they’re going to approach and I’m grateful. Because I never really thanked them for how hard they searched for Hailey. As a federal cop myself, I sympathize with their plight. Despite the books and movies and television shows, despite the legal pundits and bloggers and sensationalist reporters, results are not always the most precise indicator of whether you performed your job as well as you could have. Whether, like Rendell and West, you’ve gone above and beyond in your investigation and lost.

  Aubrey Lang moves beneath my umbrella, stands on her toes, and wraps me in a warm embrace. Kisses my cheek before settling back on her feet.

  “I’m so, so terribly sorry, Simon.”

  What she means is: I was there with Tasha the entire time. And I don’t blame you for her death.

  “I should’ve paid closer attention,” Aubrey says. “I’m a goddamn nurse. How could I have missed the signs?”

  “Her death was accidental,” I mumble.

  “What?”

  But then she follows my eyes to a black limousine as it swallows Mrs. Dunne, then her husband.

  “I’m skipping the mercy dinner,” I tell her.

  “Then I won’t go either.”

  Behind us, Terry says, “Why don’t you both come back to the pub, then? I’ve closed it for the day out of respect.” He rests a hand on my shoulder. “But I trust the three of us could all use a bloody drink or six now, am I right?”

  What he means is: Best you not be alone just yet.

  I bow my head.

  Terry removes his hand and places his long, thin arm around Aubrey’s shoulder then leads the way to his car.

  I follow them.

  I don’t pause, don’t glance back at Tasha’s grave.

  The most pressing thought running through my head now is: Will we ever find Hailey’s remains so that we can give her a proper burial, so that she can finally and forever rest in peace next to the mother who so loved her?

  Chapter 54

  Minutes before eleven o’clock at night Ostermann and I neared Knight’s End, sitting in the rear of one of London’s ubiquitous black cabs. Zoey remained behind at the Corinthia to mind my father. Ashdown, meanwhile, was paying a visit to his flat to collect items I told him we might well be needing later. The real reason I didn’t want Ashdown with us, however, was because Ashdown had a career to protect, and things, if they went as I expected, were going to start getting ugly.

  Two blocks away we hit a bit of traffic and Ostermann suggested we go the rest of the way on foot. I paid the cab driver and stepped into another bitter night. A single line of thought had been racing through my mind the entire ride. If only I’d accepted my father’s request to pay us a visit twelve years ago when Hailey went missing. If only I’d welcomed him at Tasha’s funeral. Hell, if only I’d invited him to our wedding seven years before that. He’d have come face-to-face with his old mate Terrance Davies, and none of this nightmare would have happened. If only I’d known their history, Hailey would have never been taken. Because the abductor wouldn’t have been part of our lives.

  By locking out my father, I’d doomed my wife and daughter. And I’ll never forgive myself for that.

  Trying to escape these thoughts as we ran through the East End, I pulled out my BlackBerry. Slowed enough to go through my contacts and dialed a number that had remained in my phone for twelve years.

  An eager voice answered. “This is Rendell.”

  “John, it’s Fisk. I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”

  “No worries, Simon. Where are you? What can I do for you?”

  “I’m in London. You remember Terry Davies, right?”

  “Your English friend, sure.”

  “Head over to his bar.”

  “All right. And do what exactly?”

  “You’ll need to search the entire premises; turn it inside and out.”

  “Simon, I’ll need a search warrant. And in order to get that, I’ll need evidence. And time.”

  “The bartender’s name is Casey O’Connell. He’s a nice guy but a bit of a mouth-breather. Say whatever you have to in order to get him to consent to the search.”

  “And if he doesn’t consent?”

  “Search the place anyway.”

  “Simon, if I do that, any evidence I find will be inadmissible in court. And anything linked to what I find will be thrown out as well. You know that. If you have something, I have to do this right in order to preserve the integrity of the prosecution.”

  “John,” I said as I slowed to a halt, “there’s not going to be any prosecution.”

  With that, I clicked off the line.

  * * *

  Ostermann and I pushed our way through the outgoing tide of merrymakers and stepped inside the Knight’s End.

  The young waiter, Andrew, from earlier in the day was the first one to spot us. “Sorry, mates, but it’s chucking-out time.”

  “We’re not here to drink,” I said without stopping.

  “Kitchen’s closed too,” he called after me.

  I walked straight up to the bar where Lizzy stood with her back to us, wiping down bottles again.

  “Where’s your boss?” I said.

  Turning, she seemed startled to see me. “We’re closing, love.”

  “Where’s your boss?” I said again.

  “I told you this afternoon, I haven’t seen him in days.”

  “How about his daughter?”

  “His daughter hasn’t been—” Her eyes darted past me and she shouted, “What in bloody hell are you doing, you prat? Put that lad down now before I call the bill.”

  I wheeled around, spotted Ostermann holding the kid waiter up against the wall by the throat. Christ, I thought. But before I could utter a word, he set the boy down on his feet, gave him a light tap on the face, and said, “There’s a good chap.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d had to remind myself that Kurt Ostermann did things differently. I flashed on the evening two years earlier in Berlin when, in a dark alley behind the infamous SO36 nightclub, Ostermann knocked out cold the two kidnappers I’d chased from Paris. As a result of what happened in that alley in Kreuzberg, the kidnappers, Dietrich Braun and Karl Finster, ended up dead. Not by Ostermann’s hand but by the Turks who’d hired them.

  He started toward the rear of the pub.

  Palms sweating, hands trembling in anticipation, I took one purposeful step in his direction before he stopped me cold with a look of pure fortitude chiseled into his face.

  “I know where she is,” he said. “Follow me.”

  Chapter 55

  TWELVE YEARS AGO

  At Terry’s pub, Aubrey and I sit across from each other at a tal
l but intimate bar table, both of us watching the rain slice through the night under the light of the streetlamp on the corner. In front of Aubrey sits a piping cup of black coffee, in front of me a pint of Harp. Terry is behind the bar, mixing his second gin and tonic of the past ten minutes.

  For me, the beer is going down like drain cleaner. I want to numb myself but I know I’ll never get more than one or two pints into my stomach before I toss them back up. It occurs to me there have long been rumors that Terry still sells illicit drugs. Right out of the bar, supposedly. I’d known nothing about it while I worked here and I wouldn’t have wanted to know. What Terry did back in London to earn a living after being tossed out of law school and sent to prison for two and a half years, all for a single drunken fistfight, was his business. But in college I’d had my eye on becoming a federal cop and I hadn’t wanted to do anything to risk screwing that up.

  Since becoming a federal marshal I’d ignored the rumors. See no evil, hear no evil. But I admit, I’ve always been curious. Particularly since I know the bar inside and out and in four years I’d never come across anything so much as suspicious. All he has is the one large storeroom in back and at one time or another, I’d seen every inch of it.

  Still, I wonder.

  For a few minutes I consider asking Terry if he has anything stronger than beer. Like weed. Like coke. Like smack. Then I think better of it. I’ve never done an unlawful drug in my life and now’s no time to start. Even though my career is no longer a consideration.

  “I’ve decided to resign from the Marshals,” I tell Aubrey.

  My words catch her by surprise. “Really? Do you know what you’ll do?”

  I shake my head. “There’s no rush though. I’ll sell the house in Georgetown, take a little of the money to pay a one-year lease on a studio somewhere here in the District, and return the rest of the proceeds to Tasha’s parents.”

  “The Dunnes won’t take the money back, will they?”

  “I’m not going to leave them much choice. They can take the money or I’ll write a check to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They can’t object to that, can they? Maybe I’ll even present that as their first option.”