by R.J. Ellory
What Parrish really needed was Melissa. He needed to find her - dead or alive - and once found, he needed to rule her in or out as a related case. Perhaps she would turn out to be nothing more than a runaway. What he hoped, and he hoped this with such sadness in his heart, was that she was related, and that she was dead, and that on her person would be something that would help them find the perp. There was a strong possibility that she might have been the first of the murders, and often - in the case of a serial - the definitive MO that made them a serial had not yet been fully formulated. The later victims were strangled. Perhaps the first one had been shot or stabbed, perhaps battered to death. It was true that the more dramatic the manner of death, the more potential there was for evidence and subsequent profiling. A simple strangulation said little more than the need to see the victims' faces as they died, to watch closely as the life-light faded from their eyes. A cord, a rope, a scarf, anything but their own hands. But perhaps there had been something else about the first one - something special, something unique - and it would give them an edge, a means by which they could narrow down their suspects at South Two. Everyone below five-eight and above six- two, everyone with fair hair is out of the picture . . . that kind of thing. You lose fifteen percent of your suspects. Now you only have forty-one to deal with.
Parrish smiled to himself - a rueful and sardonic smile. He knew he was fooling himself into thinking this was going to be straightforward, when - in truth - it was anything but.
He glanced at his watch. It was twenty to six.
'Take off, Jimmy,' he told Radick. 'I don't see there's anything more you can do now. We have to wait for the warrant, and then we go get phone records, but that's gonna happen earliest tomorrow, more likely Monday, unless Haversaw throws some weight at it.'
Radick rose, gathered his jacket. 'You okay, Frank?' he asked Parrish.
'Never been better,' Parrish replied.
'You gonna go home, eat out, what?' 'Go home, more than likely,' Parrish replied. 'Why? You gonna to ask me on a date?'
Radick shook his head. 'Not that desperate,' he said, and headed for the door.
Parrish watched him go, and he smiled. He knew what he would do. He would go get a take-out near Caitlin's and surprise her.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Parrish hoped that the girls who shared Caitlin's apartment would be out. He needed to talk to her; he needed her to finally and forever understand that his interference was paternal, parental, and - from his perspective - vitally necessary. At twenty years old you didn't just think you knew everything, you knew you knew everything. Sure, the world had changed - 2008 was not 1968 - but no-one could argue that it had changed for the better. It had not. Sure, the madness was there twenty, thirty, forty years before, but with TV, and now the internet, everyone got to share in the madness so much faster and so much deeper. And what had that done? It had given people ideas. Parrish was convinced of it. When he was a rookie cop there were ten ways to skin a cat. Now there were ten thousand.
He got off the subway at Carroll Street and walked a half block to a Chinese take-out he knew. He ordered crispy chili beef, fried rice, won tons, a whole bunch of stuff, and while they prepared his order he went up the street to a liquor store and bought a half dozen bottles of Corona.
A few minutes after seven he was knocking on the door at Caitlin's place, waiting patiently.
When he heard her voice, the sound of her laughing, he was disappointed. She was not alone. They were good girls, the ones she lived with, but tonight he could have done without them. It would feel awkward. Maybe he would just leave the food and the beer and go. Make it seem like he'd brought it up for her and her friends to enjoy. A peace offering.
Caitlin opened the door, and her expression changed so quickly from surprise to concealed anxiety that Parrish knew something was wrong.
'Hell of a way to greet your old man,' he said, intending to sound light-hearted, but it came out all wrong. Sounded bitter, like an accusation.
'Dad . . .' she said, and it was half a question.
'It is,' Parrish replied, and held up his packages - a bag stacked with take-out boxes in one, a bag of bottles in the other. 'Figured we could have some dinner—'
'I'm going out to eat,' she said, and it was evident that this wasn't true. She said it too quickly, too eagerly. I'm-going-out-to- eat like it was just one word.
'So I'll eat a little, we'll drink a beer, we'll stick the rest in the refrigerator for tomorrow's breakfast for you and the girls.'
'Dad - I'm not alone . . .'
'I know that. Hell, there's enough for everyone—'
'The girls aren't here,' she said, and Parrish started to smile.
'Aha,' he said. 'A young gentleman is courting my daughter—'
'Caitlin?' a voice called from within the apartment, and Parrish saw his daughter flinch.
'What's up?' the voice asked, and Parrish felt something strange and cold and awkward surfacing in his thoughts.
He knew that voice. He recognized that voice.
'Radick?' Incredulity and disbelief were evident in his tone. 'Radick is in there?'
Caitlin tried to close the door as far as she could while she still remained between the edge and the frame. 'Dad,' she urged. 'Please, Dad. Don't make a scene. It's nothing, Dad, really. He just called me the day before yesterday because I was concerned about you—'
'What do you mean, concerned about me? You are concerned about me? What the fuck does that have to do with my partner? What the fuck is my partner doing coming over and talking to my daughter about me for?'
Parrish dropped the bag of take-out on the floor. It landed heavily but the boxes didn't spill out onto hallway.
He stepped forward and pushed the door, taking Caitlin by surprise, and the door flew open and banged against the wall. It rebounded with such force that it swung back and closed again.
Parrish strode past her even as she grabbed his jacket and tried to stop him.
Jimmy Radick stood there in the middle of the room.
'What the fu—' Parrish started, but Radick raised his hands and interrupted him.
'Don't read anything into this, Frank,' he said matter-of-factly. He was obviously agitated, but doing his best to maintain some semblance of calm.
Caitlin was behind Parrish. 'Dad,' she said. 'Enough already. There's no need for you to be mad at him.'
Parrish dropped the bag of beer bottles. One of them broke and beer spilled out along the edge of the carpet and made its way beneath the sofa.
'Frank, seriously, this is too much now,' Radick said. 'You listen to me before you say another word.'
Frank Parrish saw a great many things in that moment, and none of them were common sense. He took another step forward and even as he raised his hand to grab Radick's jacket lapels, Radick sidestepped and pushed him. Parrish lost his balance and fell into the armchair. As he tried to get up Radick was over him, his face challenging, his tone decisive.
'Frank,' he said. 'You listen to me now. Enough of this bullshit, okay?'
Parrish jerked his foot upwards. Radick saw it coming and turned to block it with his knee. He stepped back as the pain hit him, and Parrish was on his feet.
Now Caitlin went for her father, hands flailing, slapping his shoulders, the back of his head, the side of his face, and it was in that moment that Parrish saw nothing but his daughter and his partner conspiring against him, talking about him, denigrating him, finding him a source of pathetic humor. Suddenly he saw Clare in Caitlin's eyes, and the rage boiled inside him.
He hit her. Never in twenty years had he hit his daughter, but he hit her then. It was an involuntary and reactive swipe backwards, nothing more than an attempt to stop the whirlwind of hands that was coming at him, but her arms were down in that moment, and the side of his forearm connected with the side of her face and she went over like a ten-pin.
In the moment of shock, the handful of seconds it took to truly comprehend what he had done, Parrish becam
e aware of nothing but his own stupidity and ignorance. Radick was behind him, had both his arms pinned back with such force that Parrish couldn't even resist.
'You asshole, Frank!' Radick said. 'You dumb fucking asshole!'
'Caitlin? Caitlin? Jesus, I'm sorry . . . Jesus, Caitlin, I didn't mean to . . . Caitlin? Honey?'
But Radick was marching him to the door, pinning his arms behind him in a vice-like grip, and as he used one hand to open the door, he used the other to shove Parrish out into the hallway, before slamming the door shut.
Parrish heard the lock turn, the security chain slipping into its mooring, and he knew there was no going back.
'Caitlin!' he shouted. 'Caitlin! Jesus, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! Caitlin!'
Radick's voice came then - firm and certain from behind the door. 'Go home, Frank. Cool off. You go home and calm the fuck down or I'll call the Precinct and have them lock you up for the night.'
'Fuck you, Radick—'
'Frank! Listen to me now! You go home and cool the fuck off or I'm calling Valderas and having your ass in lock-up for the night! You hear me? Back the fuck off, okay?'
Parrish took a step backwards. His heel connected with the bag of take-out boxes on the hallway floor, and in one last moment of outrage he let fly with the hardest kick he could muster.
Food exploded along the hallway and up the walls. Noodles, rice, pieces of chicken; a carton of sweet and sour sauce unloaded its contents down the uppermost risers of the stairwell, and Parrish watched it all in slow-motion, his heart racing, his fists clenched, and it seemed for a moment that he was standing outside of himself, and even he was laughing at the idiocy of his actions.
He knew then that Radick would not listen. He turned and pressed his ear against the door. He could hear Caitlin sobbing, could hear Radick consoling her, and he wondered whether this was now the beginning of the end. Caitlin would tell Robert, Robert would tell Clare, and the degree of estrangement he had already caused in his family would be magnified a thousand-fold. Radick would report it to Valderas, Valderas would speak to Haversaw, and Parrish would find himself without a partner once again. Perhaps this time they would can him for good. They would look at his desk and there they would find another six unclosed cases. That was besides subway, hooker and campus. The board would not look good. He could even be charged with assaulting his own daughter . . .
Parrish paused for a moment, unable to breathe. He wanted it all to end. He wanted the whole world to vanish, leaving behind himself, his daughter, and few minutes of silence to explain himself.
He looked at the mess around him - the spilled cartons, the food on the walls and the stairwell - and he couldn't face it a minute longer.
He hurried down and out of the building before anyone else saw him.
THIRTY-NINE
A gambler feels safe only when he has nothing left to lose.
Parrish had gambled with his marriage, his family, his career, his whole life.
Every day in every way I am not getting better.
He found a watering hole, some place on Baltic Street. He could have been anywhere, for such places were all the same - a weathered wooden bar, a sodium-colored atmosphere that made everyone look sick; a place that served merely to remind you of the very things you wished to forget.
Bad cop. No donut.
He wore his fears like a scar. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and that heart was broken and bleeding, raw and hollow.
Emptiness like a raw tooth socket.
After three Bushmills he believed he was forgetting what he had done.
You're unaware of what's important until it's gone.
After the fourth he made his way to the jukebox and put on Art Tatum.
I drink because I am lonely. I drink because I am afraid. I drink because of my father. Always the same old reasons: a liar never varies the story.
He tried to recall what had happened in Caitlin's apartment. He tried to remember how hard he had hit her.
And you were the darkest of all my nights, the brightest of all my days.
But he could not. He knew his mind had closed down somewhere back there, and anything that was in his memory would not be available for some time to come.
Change here for everywhere, and everywhere else as well.
He felt like the worst kind of human being. Less than that. Less than a human being.
Oh, Frank, your mother must be so, so proud of you . . .
And he wondered what tomorrow would bring. Wondered if Radick would speak to Valderas, if it was all over, if the world as he knew it had now drawn to a close and there was no longer a place on the stage for Frank Michael Parrish.
Lord God, if nothing else, just grant me one more day.
Five, six drinks, and he knew he should leave now, take a cab, go home and sleep it off.
And so he did. He paid his tab, left a ten-buck tip, and found his own way to the street.
In his years as a policeman, Parrish could have counted on one hand the times he'd been woken by nightmares.
Such was the power of the images and emotions that assaulted him that night that when he woke he believed he was still dreaming.
The pictures were there at the very forefront of his mind; the emotions were in his gut, his chest, his heart; there in the sweat on his hands, in the dampness of his sheets, his tee-shirt, his hair.
The door that had once so decisively divided the two parts of his life was no longer a door. It was a curtain - thin as gossamer thread - and through it he could not only hear the voices of the dead, he could now see their faces.
Kelly, Rebecca, Karen, Nicole, Jennifer - even Melissa, because something told him that she was also dead, and it told him with certainty.
And in amidst their faces was Caitlin, looking back at him - at one moment sympathetic, in the next accusing. In her eyes he could see Clare again, and he wondered what his ex-wife would say to him next time he saw her. Maybe she wouldn't wait; maybe he'd get a call from her . . .
You fucked up your own life, Frank, and you fucked up mine. Can I please ask you to stay away from the kids so you don't fuck theirs up as well? Is that too much to ask?
But... but... but.. .
Enough already, Frank. Like I've said so many times, some people you have to wait for them to fuck things up. But you? With you there's no waiting. You're a fuck-up before you arrive.
Parrish got up. He filled the bathroom sink and held his face underwater for as long as he could bear.
He drank some orange juice. He tried to make himself throw up but he couldn't.
He went back to bed, and somewhere between agitated wakefulness and restless sleep he spoke with the girls one by one. He listened to what they had to say. He knew it was nothing more than imagination, but it possessed power sufficient to make him believe that they were right there beside his bed explaining all that had happened to them.
Girls with lives that had never really started. Drugged and bound and fucked and killed. Left in a hallway, left in a motel room, left in a cardboard box for the janitor to find. What a waste. What a terrible fucking waste.
The pain woke him, and it was a real pain, not something from his dreams. That awful cramping in his lower gut again. The pain that had come back enough times for him to think that perhaps he should really attend to it, see someone, get a check-up.
But he knew he wouldn't. Knew he wouldn't do anything until he'd found the truth of these killings. There was just one dimension left to everything. The whole of his life was now collapsed into learning what had really happened to Rebecca and Kelly and the others. And why was it so important? Why this case above all others? Because these girls were like Caitlin? Because they represented every failure he had perpetrated with his own daughter? Because Caitlin could so easily have been a victim too? Because if this man wasn't stopped, there could be so many more?
Someone out there knew the truth. Someone in Family South Two. Lester Young, perhaps? A man who had transferred to the Pro
bation Service, and could even now be making the lost and forgotten disappear from the face of the earth . . .
There was too much of a coincidence, too much of a connection for him to ignore it. One of those forty-eight men knew these girls' names, knew their faces, their phone numbers, their personal details. These girls had been chosen by someone to serve some purpose. Perhaps for nothing more than sex. Perhaps for photographs. Perhaps they had been dressed to look younger, and those images were now being circulated in the community that paid for such things. There was a depth of degradation and depravity out there that the vast majority of people could not even comprehend. Whatever could be imagined, people had already done it. Beyond that, they spent their time figuring out how to push the limits even further. Whoever had taken these girls from their families, whoever had drugged them and killed them, well they were nowhere near the bottom of the food chain. How did Parrish know that? Because they had been found. Not only that, they had been found intact. Those killers even more base in the scale of things would have broken up those bodies, torn them to pieces and buried them or scattered them to the four corners; they would have pushed them into waste pipes and garbage disposal units, into the river, the New Jersey marshes. And they would never have been found.
He thought of the age-progressed photographs in the classified sections of the newspapers: This is how our son would look now. Have you seen him or anyone who looks like him? Please call 1-800- THE LOST. Thank you. (This item funded by The National Center For Missing Exploited Children.)
Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Where were they? Where did they go? Why?
Parrish did not sleep again. He waited patiently until morning broke through the bedroom drapes, and then he rose and showered and shaved and dressed.
A new day, and yet a day like all the others.
FORTY