by R.J. Ellory
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
'I fucked up.'
I 'I know.'
'Radick told you.'
'He did.'
'And he told Valderas and God knows who else as well, right?'
'No, he didn't, and he says he's not going to.'
'And his reasoning behind that?'
'Ask him.'
'I'm asking you.'
'He considers that what happened last night is between you and your daughter, not between you and the department.'
'Well, that's very noble of him.'
'I don't think you can afford to be sarcastic, Frank.'
'I fucked up, okay? I already told you I fucked up. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being straight with you.'
'Honestly, Frank, I think that that's one thing you haven't been.'
'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'
'Take a look at yourself. He doesn't want to work with you, you know that? He knows he doesn't have a choice, but he's putting in an application to transfer again. He's looking at staying on in Homicide but moving to another precinct.'
'You serious?'
'Of course I'm serious. You physically attacked him, Frank. You broke up your daughter's place, you kicked Chinese food down the stairs—'
'I was pissed—'
'Pissed or not, Frank, you have no right to do that kind of thing,and considering the situation you're in I'm amazed that common sense doesn't dictate some sense of balance to your actions.'
'He is twenty-nine. My daughter is twenty—'
'And what does that have to do with it?'
'Goddammit, he's a cop, Marie . . . he's a fucking cop. This is not the sort of thing I want for her.'
'What? You think he was over there trying to sleep with her? You think that's what was going on? Honestly, Frank, I don't see how you could have been any further from the mark on this one.'
'You're telling me he wasn't over there trying to fuck my daughter?'
'Yes. He was not over there trying to sleep with your daughter. He was over there because she gave him her number, and she wanted to speak to him privately, and let's see if we can guess what she wanted to talk to him about, eh, Frank?'
'No need for the sarcasm—'
'You, Frank. You are the what and the who in everyone's life right now. Your daughter, your partner, me. Frank Parrish has gotten everyone wrapped around a pole, worried sick about what he's going to do next. Does he still have a job? Are his kids going to stop talking to him? Is his partner going to move to another precinct just to get away from him? It's all about you, Frank, so I think you've succeeded in that much at least.'
'Succeeded in what?'
'Getting yourself up there in the limelight. Getting everyone to see what a mess you've made of everything, but you're convinced that it's not your fault. I think we all realize that now. I think, we're all willing to accept the fact that no-one can help Frank Parrish but himself, and he's the last person in the world who's going to do that.'
'Seems to me that you're saying things that you really shouldn't be saying—' '
'Why? Because I'm your therapist? Though right now I don't see that I'm doing you any good at all.'
'So what? You're going to quit on me?'
'You're running me to the limits, Frank, and I don't know how much longer I'm willing to let you do that. I have so many more people to see, and all of them, without exception, are a hell of a lot more forthcoming and straightforward than you. Thing aboutthis job is that people actually appreciate what you do for them - at least most of them do. but it's almost impossible to overcome the difficulty of trying to help someone who just doesn't want to be helped.'
'You're bailing out on me? That doesn't show a lot of persistence now does it?'
'Persistence? I'm not sure you're the best judge of persistence—'
'Don't even go there, okay? Don't tell me about persistence. Persistence is pretty much the only thing that keeps me doing this job. The few people you manage to take off the streets, the ones that aren't kicked right out of court on some bullshit technicality, are replaced by their brothers, their cousins, their neighbors. You get older, they stay the same age. And the law? What the fuck is that? The law and justice are not the same thing, haven't been for fifty, a hundred years. Now the law plays out for the lawyers and the perps, not the victims or their families, and definitely not for the police. What do we represent for your average citizen? We're a fucking joke, that's what we are. They know we're not going to catch anyone, and in the rare case that we do then the asshole is gonna get the best defense that the taxpayer can buy. The guy that got robbed is paying taxes to defend the guy who robbed him. What do they hope we can do? They hope we can be some sort of legal revenge, that's what. They hope that we'll chase down some guy, and that guy'll kick and scream and resist arrest, and hopefully he'll have a gun or a knife and try something, and we'll get a chance to blow him away. That's what they hope. They want us to kill the perps so they don't have to carry the burden of guilt themselves.
'And the basic difference between the cops and the people out there? We run towards the trouble. That's what we do. Gotta be something wrong with us for doing that, but there it is. That's gotta say something about the kind of people we are, wouldn't you say?'
'Frank, I understand your frustration . . .'
'The hell you do! I'm one of those people who doesn't have new days. I just have old ones, okay? And the longer I live the older they get. Every day it's the questions for us. The cases we're working on are nothing but questions. Mostly it's who. Sometimes it's how or why. Every once in a while it's all three. It gets into your mind, and then it's in your blood, and you find yourself thinking about it even when you're talking to someone about some completely unrelated thing. You start to think that other people know, others besides the perp. Someone in a coffee shop, maybe, or sitting on the subway train. Random people. You think they know more than you do. You believe that if you could just find the right person, and just ask them one question, they would open up right there and tell you everything you need to know to close the case down.'
'Frank—'
'You start thinking that the dead can talk to you. You start imagining that the face of their killer is printed right there on their retina, and if you could just get close enough you'd see it. You start talking to yourself ... in your head at first. . . and then one day you look up from where you're sitting in a diner someplace, and you realize that people are watching you because you've been talking to yourself for the last half hour. You tell me I lack persistence, and I tell you that doing what we do takes more persistence than pretty much anything you can imagine.'
'I'm not talking about your job, Frank, I'm talking about everything else.'
'What else is there? What the fuck else is there? I am the job The job is me. If we're gonna talk about anything at all then it h to be about the job, because frankly, in all fucking honesty, the isn't anything else left right now.'
'Okay, let's talk about the job then.'
'I'm leaving.'
'Sit down, Frank. Sit down and let's talk.'
'No, I don't feel like it. I've said all I want to say. It's Friday. Let' just take a weekend without each other, okay?'
'You think that'll help?'
'Help me? Probably not. I'm thinking that it might help you.
FORTY-ONE
By the time Parrish reached his desk, the copied file for Karen Pulaski had arrived from Franco at Williamsburg. Radick was nowhere to be seen.
Parrish left the office and took the subway on up to see Raymond Foley, the Supervisor at South Two on Adams.
Lavelle was there, sat in on the brief discussion. Foley listened patiently while Parrish explained the scenario.
'So you're going to want to interview every one of the forty-six male employees of this office?'
'I am, yes,' Parrish replied. 'And I'll need to ask you and Mr Lavelle some questions of course, simply because you're here too.'
'There's a couple of things we need to verify before we can ensure that we have all the questions we need,' Parrish said. 'But that won't take long. I was wondering if we could start on Monday. I wish we weren't up against the weekend right now, but—'
'There's a good half of them here tomorrow,' Foley interjected.
'On a Saturday?'
'Sure, we have a covering staff on a Saturday. There'll be a good twenty or twenty-five of them here tomorrow.'
'Well okay, we'll start tomorrow.'
'I won't be here,' Foley said, 'but Marcus will, and he can take care of things for you.'
'That would be very much appreciated,' Parrish said.
'And you really think it's best to do it here?'
'Yes, if that can be arranged. They're certainly not under arrest, and I don't even want them to feel as though they're under suspicion. It's just a request for help from the police department, and their assistance with anything they know is going to be very much appreciated.' 'Sure, but the fact remains that you have a number of dead girls, and one of my people could be involved.'
'Yes, that is so,' Parrish replied. 'How many girls we don't know, or to what extent someone here could be involved. But this is what we're trying to establish.'
'Shit fuck God almighty,' Foley said. He rose from his desk and walked to the window, his back to Parrish and Lavelle. He was quiet for a good thirty seconds, and then he turned slowly.
'I don't know what to say—'
'You don't have to say anything, Mr Foley.'
'I mean, well . . . about the fact that it could be someone I know.'
'Though it might not,' Parrish interjected. 'It is not altogether impossible that someone has a line into your database, and they're taking the information they want from it.'
'You understand that the people here are quite strenuously screened before they're employed.'
'Yes, I do.'
'Though no system is foolproof, right?' Foley said. 'I bet you've had some awkward moments with police officers, right?'
'You better believe it,' Parrish replied. He thought of his own father. He thought of the way in which bad apples were overlooked, ignored, hidden from public view.
'Jesus . . . son of a bitch,' Foley said forcefully. 'Fuck.' He shook his head, walked back to his desk and sat down heavily. 'And you'll be doing the interviews?'
'Yes. Me and my partner.'
'So what can I do to prepare?'
'You can have a look at the names for me first and foremost,' Parrish said. Take a look at these cases and see if there's one employee who is connected to all of them.'
'Fire away, Foley said. He leaned forward, turned his monitor to an angle, reached for the keyboard on his desk.
Parrish gave him the names. Foley typed them in one after the other, and then let the system do whatever it had to do.
'Three of them are from the original South unit, one was interviewed as a possible material witness to an abuse case we were investigating, and then the last two were from District Two, right here. You know that?'
'Yes, I was aware of that. I was also given the name Lester Young.'
'He's not here anymore. As far as I know he went over to Probation—'
'We're following that up separately,' Parrish said.
Foley read things, clicked, scrolled, read more things, and then he leaned back and looked directly at Parrish. 'No,' he said. 'There doesn't appear to be any common link between these cases. All of them have been dealt with by numerous counsellors, other people from CAA, from Child Services itself. We act as the coordination point for all records, and that's all we do. There doesn't appear to be any individual name that occurs more than once in any of these cases.'
'Was a long shot,' Parrish said.
Foley smiled wryly. 'When is it ever a short shot?'
Parrish got up and extended his hand. Foley rose also and tookit.
'Appreciate your saying nothing until we show tomorrow,' Parrish said.
'Is there paperwork for this? Do you have to have a warrant?'
'To look at your records, yes,' Parrish said. 'That one we have already. To talk to your people, no. We're just making inquiries, nothing official as yet. We get some leads then maybe we'll need more warrants, but we'll jump off that bridge when we get there.'
Foley saw Parrish out. A couple of the desk jockeys seemed curious as to what was going on. Anyone with an average IQ would have known Parrish for a cop, and now he'd been here two days consecutive. There would be questions around the water cooler. Such rumors as would be circulating would serve Parrish well. If the perp was here, even the guy who gave up info on these girls for the perp - well, they would be on edge, already sweating by the time they got into an interview.
Parrish headed back to the subway, and took the train to Hoyt.
On his desk was a scrawled message from reception. Clare Baxter had called. Could he call her back?
He dialed a number he still knew by heart.
'Frank?'
'Hey there. What's up?'
'I'm gonna talk now, Frank, and you're gonna let me. This is about as much truth as you're going to get, and I think you should listen.'
Parrish closed his eyes resignedly.
'There's no-one, just no-one, who confuses and upsets me as much as you do. Sometimes I wonder if you've ever considered anything in your life, or if you do whatever the fuck comes to mind just to see what might happen. You did this to me for sixteen years, Frank, but I had a choice to get out and so I did. But Caitlin? Caitlin is your daughter, and so she feels there is an obligation to love you and to trust you. She doesn't have a choice the same way I did, Frank. She feels she has to listen to your bullshit because you're her father. Well, let me tell you now that I will be having a heart-to-heart with her about who you really are. Once that's done she can make up her own mind about whether or not she wants anything more to do with you. In the meantime, you just stay the fuck away from her, Frank, or I'm gonna spend every waking hour and every cent I can find making it illegal for you to see her—'
Parrish hung up the phone on his ex-wife. He took off his jacket. He wondered where the hell Jimmy Radick was.
FORTY-TWO
Jimmy Radick appeared just before noon. In his hand heclutched a sheaf of papers.
He sat down facing Parrish. At first Parrish said nothing, and then when he opened his mouth Radick cut him short.
'Yesterday was bullshit, Frank,' he said matter-of-factly. 'If I was a more aggressive man I would take you into the car park and beat the crap out of you. But actually, it's nothing to do with me. Whatever issues you have with your daughter are your own business, and the only mistake I made - the only mistake I made - was agreeing to speak with her about her concern for you. First time I met her she gave me her number on a piece of paper, and you know what she said to me?'
'What did she say, Jimmy?'
'She told me that you drink and you get morose. She said there was a lot of bullshit going on between you and her mom and you didn't deal with it very well. She told me to call her if you got too fucked up.'
'And you called her?'
'No, I sure as hell did not. She called me again. Yesterday. She asked me how you were getting on, how I was handling working with you, and I told her that it really wasn't any of her business and that I really didn't think it was appropriate for us to be having this conversation.'
'So what the fuck were you doing over there?'
'She asked me to go over there, Frank. She asked me to go over there because there was something she wanted to talk to me about and she didn't want to discuss it on the telephone.'
'And what was that? What was it she wanted to talk about?'
'I haven't a fucking clue, Frank, and you know why? Because you turned up and did what you did.'
Parrish lowered his head. He didn't feel ashamed. He just felt stupid. He didn't know whether Jimmy Radick was telling hi
m the truth, though he suspected he was. Any lie that Jimmy told him now would be easily discovered with a few words from Caitlin - if she ever spoke to him again. Radick would know that. Radick was not aware of the threat that Clare Baxter had made.
'I'm sorry for—'
Radick raised his hand. 'I spoke to the doctor lady. That's all. I told her I was going to put in for a transfer, but I've decided not to do that. I want to stick with this, Frank, but there has to be some ground rules. You have to stop being an asshole, okay? You really have to just stop being a fucking asshole, and we'll get along fine, okay?'
'I can do that,' Parrish said.
'You sure you want to?' Radick asked.
Parrish didn't reply. He merely looked at Radick with a resigned and worn-out expression.
'Enough already,' Radick said. 'We have work to do.' He put the sheaf of papers on the desk. 'I have not been able to find this Lester Young. I got his name over to Probation and they have no-one by that name in their system. I'll keep at it. However, what I do have is phone records for Kelly, Rebecca and Karen. Nothing for the others, their accounts are too old.'
An hour and a half later they had something. Karen had taken two calls from a number - one on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007, a second just five days later on Christmas Eve morning. Kelly had taken a call on Friday, September 5th, 2008, from a very similar number, and then Rebecca had called the same number as Kelly from her cell phone on Thursday, August 28th, just three days before her murder. Information gave them what they wanted: the Karen Pulaski number was the original South District switchboard, the second number was the new South Two office.
Parrish called Foley immediately, learned he was out, got Lavelle instead.
'Mr Lavelle, Frank Parrish here. I just wanted to know if it was possible to find out where a call had been directed to when it came in to your receptionist.'
'I have absolutely no idea, Detective Parrish. Let me put you through to reception and see what they can tell you. Come back to me if you don't get an answer.'