by R.J. Ellory
'What are you saying?' Parrish asked. 'How the hell do you even know this?'
'Because he told me, Frank. He came to me regularly, once a month, sometimes twice or three times. A tortured man, haunted by his conscience, but left without a choice—'
'Excuse me, Father, but that is such bullshit. Everyone has a choice. I made mine, he made his. His choice was to be a corrupt—'
'It isn't a choice when it comes to the lives of your children.'
Parrish looked back at Briley.
'Like I said, they had him from the moment he started dealing with Santos. And Santos gave him up to them. He went like a lamb to the slaughter. They had enough leverage because of the money he'd already taken. Santos played him right into their hands, and then they threatened you . . .'
Briley left the last statement hanging in the air.
It was seconds before it registered with Parrish, and then he slowly shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'I don't understand why you're trying to do this. I really don't get what's in it for you, but that is just so much horseshit. . .'
'There's nothing in it for me,' Briley said. 'You came and saw me. I could see your father in you. I could see you torturing yourself about something. Guilt about your kids, about Clare, about... I don't know. I know a drinker when I see one. I work in a predominantly Irish-Catholic community, Frank. Give me some credit, eh? I see a man tearing himself to pieces about something, and I know that there's something that might help him, and you think I'm going to hold onto that? Well, I'm sorry, Frank. John is long gone, God rest his soul, and even though I swore to him that I would keep my silence, it seemed to me that not knowing was perhaps more destructive to you than knowing . . .'
'Knowing what? Knowing what exactly?'
'That he was not the man that you think he was. That he was not corrupt. . . well, he was corrupt, but he was threatened. They threatened you, Frank. They didn't threaten him, they didn't threaten your mother, they threatened you. If you don't do what we want, John Parrish, we are going to kill your son. We are going to kill your only child.'
Parrish was shaking his head. 'No,' he said. 'Fuck . . . Fuck it, no. That is something I do not believe. You didn't live with him, Father Briley. You didn't see the money that came in and out of the house—'
'Not his money, Frank, their money. He had to hold it, him and his partner. You remember him, George Buranski? He had three kids, three little girls. You remember them? They got to them both, Frank, him and George, and they used them every which way they could, and after the bank robbery, the one where that off-duty cop was killed, they started to figure that your father's loyalty to the department might be greater than the leverage they had over him. You were no longer a child. You were a cop yourself by then. Your father knew you could take care of yourself. And these people got scared that John Parrish and George Buranski knew too much, that they might finally turn them over, and . . . well, that's when they killed them, Frank. Gunned them down in the street like dogs.'
Parrish felt sick. Light-headed. He wanted a drink. He needed a drink, and he wanted to be elsewhere. He was in a state of shock and confusion, and he did not want to listen to this, could not at this moment deal with it. This was not the truth, could not be the truth. His father was a bad man, a corrupt man . . . This was a certainty that could never be taken away.
'He told me everything, Frank. I saw him three days before he was killed. That was the last time I spoke to him, and then I was there to administer last rites, and I delivered his funeral, remember? And I said what I said, and I looked at the picture they had of him up there near the coffin, and I believe I was the only one who understood what had really happened to your father.'
'So why now? Why tell me this now? Why not tell me five years ago, ten years ago?'
'Because he made me promise. Your father made me promise that I would never say a word to you.'
'Why? Why would he do that?'
'To protect you. For the very same reason that he did all those things for all those years ... to protect you.'
'From what? What the hell did he have to protect me from?'
'From yourself, Frank.' Briley paused, leaned forward. 'You ever hear the old saying about vengeance? That if you head out for vengeance you should dig two graves?'
'Yes, I've heard that.'
'He knew you could get to these people. He knew you could find out who Santos worked with all those years ago, find out whatever you wanted. You were right there, a cop just like him, and anything you needed to know about the Task Force and the OCCB was right in front of you. He didn't want you to know because he didn't want you to spend your life trying to get back at them. He knew that if you went down that road you'd be dead in a fortnight.'
Parrish was shaking his head. 'This is too much. I cannot. . . Jesus Christ, this doesn't make sense . . .'
'Makes perfect sense, son. John was not the man you thought he was. He was your father, first and foremost he was your father, and though he made some very bad decisions, he also decided never to put you in harm's way. He knew he was wrong. He knew what he'd done was no good, but he kept his word as a father. That was one of the last things he said to me. He said that if the truth ever came out then at least he kept his integrity as a father.'
Parrish stood up, his jaw set, his expression inscrutable. 'I need you to leave now,' he said quietly. 'I have work to do. I have things I need to be doing—'
'Frank, seriously—'
'Enough,' Parrish interjected. 'Please, Father, I've heard enough. I don't want to hear any more. He was not who you think he was. He was dangerous. He was fucking crazy. That's the truth, and you won't convince me otherwise—'
Briley stood up. 'Frank, listen to me—'
'No, Father. I've done all the listening I want to. I need you to leave now. I really do.'
Briley was silent for a moment, hurt and disappointment in his eyes, and perhaps a sense of failure that he had not accomplished what he intended.
'I wanted you to know so you would stop killing yourself with guilt,' he said. 'There is nothing for you to be guilty about. Your father did what he did for you.'
Parrish looked down. He spoke without raising his head. 'I'll not ask you again, Father. Out of respect for you I will not throw you out of the building, but one of us is leaving the room right now and I think it should be you.'
'Very well, Frank,' Briley said. 'I am sorry for all of this. Perhaps I should have told you earlier . . .'He shook his head. 'I believe I knew your father better than anyone, and he was not the man you think he was . . .'
Parrish looked up. He said nothing. His eyes were like flint, hard.
Briley nodded, then turned and left the room.
Frank Parrish stood where he was for a good five minutes, his breathing shallow, a fist of emotion in his throat, his heart racing, a thin line of sweat beneath his hairline.
He willed himself to move, he willed himself to forget all that Briley had said, but he was seething with tension, with conflict, with a sense of betrayal, and he felt rage boiling up inside him. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, again and again, forced himself to focus on what he was about to do. Focus on that and nothing more. He had something to do. Something important. Something right. Something positive. He had already spent too long delving into his own past, his own thoughts. And where had it gotten him? Nowhere. He had broken things apart to look inside, and the only result had been more damage. With Caitlin, with Clare, with Radick. How long could he go on apologizing for his own existence? How long could he go on saying sorry for everything that came out of his mouth? Wasn't it time just to trust his intuition, his own sense of certainty, and to do something about what had happened? People were dying. Children were dying. Someone had to stop it, and it had to stop now.
It was that thought above all that moved him. He closed the door behind him and hurried down the back stairs to the basement.
SEVENTY-FOUR
Eleven minutes, that was all, and the car poo
l supervisor stepped out of his office and crossed the garage to the rest- room on the other side of the building. Parrish hurried across, entered the office, snatched the first set of keys he could reach, and then walked along the bank of unmarked cars until he found the plate that matched. A beat-to-shit dark blue saloon, unremarkable and innocuous. Parrish got in, started the engine and pulled out of the garage. The supervisor would assume that someone had borrowed the car for the weekend. He would express his annoyance at the offender on Monday morning, if he was the guy on shift when the car was returned. Such 'loans' were a common occurrence, and there was little that could be done to stop them.
Parrish took a left on Hoyt and made his way south-east. He forced himself not to think about Briley, about his father. He willed himself to shut all of it out of his mind until he was through with this. He needed to see Caitlin, and prayed that she would be home. He had to make things good with her. Clare could think what the fuck she liked, and Robert would think whatever he wanted regardless of what any of them said or did. It had been a month now since he'd seen his son, and they could go another six months without speaking, and yet when they collided once again it would be as though they had spoken only the day before. Robert's nonchalant and unconcerned attitude had always seemed an issue, certainly for Clare, but now, after all this talk with Marie Griffin, it seemed to Parrish that his son's attitude might actually serve him better than the over-serious, responsible viewpoint that parents so often tried to foist off on their kids. Robert was Robert. It would be good for him or it wouldn't, and no end of fatherly discussions and advice would change Robert's mind. If he went ahead and spent the rest of his life accomplishing not very much of anything at all, and yet he was happy accomplishing nothing, then so be it. Most times it was the over- achievers who experienced disappointment and stress. Cynical bastard, Parrish thought as he pulled over a block and a half from Caitlin's apartment block.
Parrish couldn't remember her name, the girl who opened the apartment door.
'Mr Parrish,' she said cheerfully, evidently remembering his.
'Hi there,' Parrish replied. 'I was after Caitlin.'
'She's not here.'
'She's studying?'
'No, I think she's working tonight. She's doing a long- weekender at the University Hospital. You know where that is, right? Up where Atlantic meets the expressway?'
Parrish knew exactly where it was: a block from Hicks Street, a block from Danny Lange's apartment and a dead girl that seemed so long ago.
'Yes,' Parrish said. 'I know where it is.' He hesitated, almost as if he had something else to say.
The girl looked awkward. 'Was there anything else you needed?'
'No,' he said, and smiled as best he could. I’ll go on up there and see her.'
He drove back up Smith and took Atlantic. He pulled over on Clinton and walked the rest of the way. The hospital receptionist was helpful but relatively clueless. The student nurses could be anywhere in the building, she told Parrish. She could put an announcement on the system perhaps? Was it important?
'Sir?' she prompted as Parrish stared off into the middle- distance without answering her question.
He turned back and shook his head. 'Not so important as to disturb her while she's working.'
'You want to leave a message?'
'Yes, a message. Sure. Tell her that her dad stopped by. That he said he was sorry for everything and that he loves her.'
The receptionist smiled. I’ll make sure she gets it, sir.'
Parrish left the hospital. He drove home, parked a block away, spent an hour making sandwiches, a flask of coffee, collected some tape cassettes of Tom Waits, Gil Scott-Heron, Kenny Burrell, and dumped the lot in a holdall. He changed out of his shirt and tie into a plain dark sweatshirt, a loose-fitting jacket, a pair of jeans. He took a torch, his keys, an unmarked and untraceable .32 caliber revolver he had picked up on a bust several years before, and then he stopped at the door as he was leaving and looked back at the nondescript room. Had he not lived there he would have believed the place empty, waiting for tenants. He had become his job. He was defined by dead strangers. Depressing, but true.
Frank Parrish locked the door behind him and made his way out to the street.
SEVENTY-FIVE
'He needs to know, Caitlin. Seriously.'
Caitlin Parrish, seated there in the University Hospital canteen, shook her head slowly. 'Not yet,' she said. 'He needs to suffer a little longer. He needs to really, really miss me and then he'll forgive me anything.' She smiled coyly.
Jimmy Radick leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. 'You are a wicked daughter,' he said.
'I know him, Jimmy, believe me. He can be very possessive, jealous almost. It was something that Mom used to run into frequently. He even resented the way that my grandfather used to talk to her.'
'How old were you when he died?'
'Grandpa John? When was it, now . . . 1992 ... I would have been, let me see, four, four and a half.'
'And how the hell would you have known what your father thought of your grandfather when you were four and a half years old?'
'Because we girls have extra-sensory perception when it comes to such things.' She smiled. 'Because my mom told me, that's why.'
'But that's just your mom's take on things, Caitlin. There are two sides to everything.'
'Look, Jimmy, you have to understand something here. As far as my father is concerned, my mother is numero uno bitch of all time. He wants you to think of her that way so you forgive him for being such an asshole to her. He was never there, always working—'
'You know what it's like. It'll be the same for you when you're full-time nursing—'
'It wasn't the shifts, Jimmy, it was the broken promises.
Anyway, we're not here to talk about my parents' fucked-up relationship, we're here to talk about us.'
'Yes, and I think Frank needs to know. This creeping around, meeting each other when we know he's not going to come visit you. He's my partner, for God's sake—'
'And you've only just started working together, and you and I have only just started going out together, and I want both these relationships to settle somewhat before we start upsetting everyone.'
'You think he'll be upset?'
'I think he'll be concerned.'
'Because of our age difference?'
'I'm twenty, you're twenty-nine. When you're sixty, I'll be fifty- one, no big deal. No. Age isn't what he'll have a problem with. It's the fact that you're a cop.'
'But so is he.'
'Exactly! He doesn't want what happened to him and Mom to happen to his daughter. It's bullshit, but it's the way he thinks. He used to lecture me - well, maybe lecture is too strong a word - but one time he made me promise that I'd never date a cop.'
'And now you're dating his partner, and doing it behind his back.'
'Leave it as it is,' Caitlin said. She reached out and took Radick's hand. 'We've been going out for a little over two weeks. Everything's new, everything's exciting. Give me a month and I won't care what you do ... in fact I'll probably be all too eager for you to tell my dad because I'll be looking for a reason to dump you.'
Radick laughed. 'This inspires me with great confidence.'
'Anyway, we'll talk about it some other time. I've told the girls at home that I'm on a long-weekender here just in case he comes around to the apartment. I don't think he will, I think he needs at least another week to deal with his shame, but you never know.' She glanced at her watch. 'I've got two hours and then I'm done. Come pick me up. We'll go eat some place nice, and then you can keep me in handcuffs at your apartment for the weekend, okay?'
'Sounds good to me.'
Caitlin leaned forward and kissed Radick. 'Eight o'clock, Detective,' she said, 'and don't be late.'
SEVENTY-SIX
Richard McKee was in his house. He was there for the night.
Frank Parrish was going to sit in an unofficially loaned car half a block down the
street and watch that house. As and when McKee went out he was going inside. If he was caught it would all be over. If he found something incriminating, well, he would be impotent as far as offering probative evidence was concerned. He had no real justification for the search, but in his own mind he did, and such justification was as good a warrant as he needed. His probable cause was a suspicion that he could not ignore, a sense of duty, a need to know for sure and for certain that McKee was the guy.
There was a single light on in the lower half of the house; then, a little after nine, a light went on upstairs as well. Parrish had kicked the seat back to stretch his legs. He knew he was here for the duration. He knew that what he was doing was beyond all bounds of protocol and procedure. At eleven the lower light went out. A second light went on upstairs, and was switched off fifteen minutes later. McKee had showered perhaps. The drapes moved in the one remaining lit window, and then the light went out and there was the flicker of a TV. What was he doing? Watching Drew Carey reruns? Parrish smiled to himself. He was watching himself choke Jennifer and Karen to death while he fucked them. That's what he was doing.
The house was in darkness by a quarter of midnight, and Parrish moved to the back seat of the car. He loosened his belt and untied his shoes. He would stay awake, no question. Plenty of experience, no shortage of practice. He could sit still for hours. He had a plastic bottle to piss into, his flask of coffee, his food. He could put on the music later, just quiet, just there in the background to help him focus, and he was set. No different from any other stakeout, except this time he was alone.