A Fatal Obsession

by James Hayman

  Bradshaw got up and held out a pair of flex cuffs. Told her to hold out her wrists.

  Instead of holding them out, she slid her hands around his neck and pulled him to her. “Make me,” she said.

  He leaned down. Kissed her softly as she nibbled his lower lip. He looked, she thought, sublimely happy. But happy or not, when he unwrapped himself from her embrace, he told her, “I’m still not sure I can trust you. You’ll have to prove yourself.”

  He told her again to hold out her wrists. This time she followed instructions, putting them out in front of her rather than behind. Far more comfortable that way. He snapped on a pair of flex cuffs and tightened them just enough to be sure she couldn’t slip her hands free.

  She followed him to the door and watched him carefully. After he entered the four digits, Zoe noted exactly where he placed his thumb to activate the unlock mechanism. And she found herself wondering if by any chance there might be a meat cleaver somewhere in this gigantic house. Or perhaps a saw. Or a pair of lopping shears. Cooking. Carpentry. Gardening. If she expressed an interest in all three activities, who knew what might turn up?

  Chapter 21

  It took McCabe almost an hour to get back to the hospital. Maggie greeted him just outside the door with a tight hug. “Still alive,” she said, “but barely. The doctor thinks it won’t be long. Fran wanted to be alone with her.”

  McCabe nodded. He knocked gently at the door. “Frannie? Okay if I come in?”

  “Come.”

  Sister Mary Frances, dressed in a white nun’s habit, was sitting quietly by her mother’s bed holding her hand. McCabe wondered if Maggie had told Fran about Zoe. Looking at his sister’s calm face, he guessed not. Though in truth Fran almost always looked calm. He sometimes wondered if the convent might not be slipping double doses of Xanax into the sisters’ bowls of ice cream at the end of the evening meal. He decided not to mention Zoe for the moment. He went to the bed and put his hand on his sister’s shoulder.

  Fran looked up and smiled. Then she rose and gave her younger brother a hug.

  “Maggie told me the good news,” she said. “While the Church still doesn’t approve of your divorce from Sandy and certainly won’t recognize your marriage to Maggie, I personally am delighted. Especially since you’ve found someone so much nicer than the selfish bitch you had the bad taste to exchange vows with the last time.”

  McCabe kissed his sister’s cheek. “Thank you, darling. But nuns aren’t supposed to call people ‘selfish bitches,’ are they?”

  “Not a problem as long as you don’t spread it around the convent. But it’s the truth and you know it. In any event, I already like Maggie way better than I ever liked Sandy. But don’t expect another set of Waterford glasses as a wedding present. A, I can’t afford them. Vows of poverty and all that. And B, I only gave them to you the first time because I was sure being married to someone like Sandy would drive you to drink. It seemed to me if you were going to be drinking a lot you might as well do it out of some really nice glasses.”

  McCabe squeezed his sister’s shoulders and then looked past her toward their mother’s pale, battered face. The only indication that Rose was still alive was the slow, gentle rise and fall of her chest and the moving line on the heart monitor. Then as McCabe stood there watching, the rising and falling stopped. The heart monitor flatlined. A buzzer started buzzing. A nurse who looked experienced and a doctor wearing big black glasses who looked no more than fourteen came rushing in.

  Frannie and McCabe retreated to the corner as the nurse gave Rose first one shot and then another. The doctor started chest compressions. Another nurse entered the room. “Intubate and bag her,” the doctor said to the second nurse. Continuing the chest compressions, he looked over at McCabe and Fran. “We’re going to try to bring her back. Please would you mind leaving the room while we work with her?”

  “Why don’t you just let her go?” he asked the fourteen-year-old. “We told you we didn’t want any heroic measures.”

  “This isn’t heroic,” said the doctor, still pounding on Rose’s chest. “This is standard procedure to try to restart the heart.” McCabe was amazed the kid wasn’t breaking any more of his mother’s fragile ribs. Not that it really mattered anymore. “Now once again, please wait outside until we’re finished here. You too, Sister.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” said McCabe. “And I want you to stop beating her up.”

  The boyish doctor gave McCabe what he must have considered a stern look. McCabe threw back a look that basically said, Fuck you.

  “Very well, you may stay,” said the doctor, and then, a flash of sympathy piercing through his otherwise stoic mask, “I understand.”

  A couple of more nurses, or maybe they were technicians of some kind, McCabe didn’t know, rushed into the room and surrounded Rose’s bed.

  Seconds later the doctor stopped the CPR. “Never mind,” he told the others. “It’s over. She’s gone.” He checked his watch, then looked up and announced. “T.O.D. 4:41 p.m. Monday, October 12. Immediate cause of death, heart failure from complications of pneumonia and a serious fall.”

  One of the nurses entered the information on some kind of digital tablet.

  “We’d like to be with her for a while,” Frannie said to one of the nurses. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course not, Sister.”

  The doctor and nurses left and Maggie reentered the room. She took McCabe’s hand and watched Fran kneel by the bed and take her mother’s hand and hold it to her chest. Fran started speaking softly. So softly McCabe could barely hear the words.

  “Dear Lord, we commend the soul of your servant Rose Marie O’Toole McCabe into your loving arms, and may she be blessed to stay with you forevermore. Go forth, dear mother, from this world in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for you; in the name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured out upon you, go forth, faithful Christian. May you live in peace this day, may your home be with God in Heaven, with Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, with Joseph, and all the angels and saints.”

  Then she crossed herself and leaned down and kissed her mother on the forehead. McCabe came over and did the same, minus the crossing.

  Fran turned toward her brother and said with a sad smile. “And now that’s she’s gone, Michael. I suggest you take the rings Bobby offered. I agree with him that you should give them to Maggie.”

  McCabe took his mother’s left hand in his own. Pulled it toward him and gently started twisting the rings off her fourth finger. They hadn’t been off Rose’s finger for nearly sixty years and didn’t move easily. Using a little liquid soap from the bathroom, he finally managed to slide them off. He put both rings in his pocket. He wanted to give Maggie the small diamond engagement ring in a more private and happier time. And of course they would save the wedding ring until the required moment.

  “Frannie, sit down.” McCabe sighed. “There’s something else you need to know . . .”

  “What?”

  “Did you speak to Bobby?”

  “No. He didn’t answer his phone. What is this about?”

  “It’s about Zoe. Sit down.”

  Frannie sat in the green visitor’s chair and McCabe proceeded to tell both his sister and his brand new fiancée about what had gone down at 121 Clinton Street. He left nothing out for his sister’s benefit. Not the murder of Annie Nakamura. And not the likelihood that both Nakamura’s death and Zoe’s kidnapping were the work of the suspected serial killer the NYPD had been tracking for several months now. He reiterated that given the timing between the other kidnappings and the discovery of the missing women’s bodies, he thought there was a very good chance that Zoe might still be alive. At least for now. They simply had to find her before the bad guy decided to end it.

  “Before he gets bored with raping her and with whatever the else he might be doing,” said Frannie, an uncharacteristic anger in her voice. “Before
he decides she no longer interests him enough to keep her alive? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

  McCabe sighed. “Yes.”

  “Dear Lord. And Bobby knows all this?”

  “He does. That’s why he’s not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I hope with Cathy but I’m not sure.”

  “Does she know what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I imagine he’s told her by now. I’m going to do whatever I can to help find Zoe before the worst happens.”

  “The worst? The worst?” Fran repeated the words several times as if trying to comprehend what the worst in this case could possibly mean.

  McCabe went on. “Frannie, you’re going to need to handle all the arrangements for Mam’s funeral. Bobby’s in no shape to even think about it and I have a feeling I’m going to be kind of busy.”

  Maggie threw him a questioning look but said nothing.

  “As for the funeral,” he continued, “I would keep it as small and private as possible. We can always have a larger memorial service later.”

  “Of course, Michael,” said Fran. “I agree. I’ll take care of everything. A private service and interment at St. Ray’s. Father Hodges, of course. Mother always cared for him. In fact, I think she had a bit of a crush on him, even before Daddy died. Why don’t you two go now. You have work to do and I’d like to spend some time with Mam alone. I also want to pray for Zoe. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I hope it will help.”

  Chapter 22

  Neither Maggie nor McCabe spoke until they were outside the hospital building, heading toward the garage where they’d left the car. Maggie spoke first. “The NYPD is supposed to be very competent, you know.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “They know what they’re doing.”

  “Most of the time.”

  “They’re about as good as any police force in the world.”

  “Probably so.”

  “But you still think they need your help? Or that they even want it?”

  McCabe stopped and looked at Maggie. “It’s not that they need my help. Or want it. You of all people should understand it’s not about them. It’s about me. I need to know I’m doing everything I can to find my niece, my brother’s only child. I couldn’t live with myself if some bastard raped or killed her or most likely both and I hadn’t personally done absolutely everything I possibly could. Both to save her life and to punish the bad guy. I also have a feeling my brother would never forgive me.”

  “Have you thought what you’re going to say to Shockley if he won’t give you the time off?” Tom Shockley was Portland’s chief of police. Both Maggie and McCabe’s boss.

  “I believe compassionate leave is the generally accepted term in cases like this. For a couple of days at least. Plus I’ve got a lot of accrued vacation. If Shockley has a problem with me taking some of the vacation days they owe me, he can go screw off.”

  Maggie let out a deep sigh. “Okay, McCabe, if you’re working on this, I’m working on it with you.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “It is to me. A, I’m your partner. Have been for the last eight years. And B, you do remember that ring you just put in your pocket, don’t you?”

  McCabe didn’t answer.

  “That ring means we’ve just elevated our partnership to a whole other level. Which means to me, if you’re determined to go after some wacko serial killer, with or without the help of some New York cops who I’m not entirely sure will have your best interests at heart, well, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Whither thou goest and all that jazz.”

  “Book of Ruth.”

  “What?”

  McCabe looked at the woman he loved and stroked her cheek. “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Ruth 1:16. I understand perfectly. And I feel exactly the same way about you.”

  Maggie put her arms around him and they stood like that until a car that wanted to get past them flashed its lights. The driver smiled as he passed and gave them a thumbs-up.

  Maggie clicked a button. The TrailBlazer’s lights flashed.

  “You drive,” said McCabe. “I need to make some calls. Set your GPS to 2 Sutton Place South in Manhattan.”

  “Bobby’s apartment?”

  “Yeah. When we get closer we may divert and head down to the Lower East Side. I’ll let you know.”

  As Maggie headed toward the garage exit, McCabe took out his phone. “Siri, call Bobby’s mobile.”

  “I heard about Mam. Fran told me,” his brother said, picking up so fast McCabe was sure he’d been holding the phone in his hand waiting for a call.

  Bobby spoke in a flat, quiet tone, as if all positive emotion had been drained out of him and there was nothing left but a brewing stew of raw anger.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be with Mam when she passed,” he said. “I know you and Frannie were and I’m glad about that. At the moment finding Zoe just seems like a higher priority.”

  McCabe could hear the sound of street traffic in the background. “Bobby, where are you?”

  “Right now? Leaning against a rusty wrought-iron fence outside a crappy tenement on Clinton Street. It’s right across the street from Zoe’s.”

  “And what exactly are you doing?”

  “Waiting for Zoe.”

  “Waiting for Zoe?”

  “Yeah. I keep hoping she’ll just come bopping up the street and have no idea what all the cops are doing here. Have no idea her neighbor’s been murdered. Hoping maybe she just grabbed that duffel bag herself and stuffed some clothes in it and took off. Maybe she’s been staying with a boyfriend or maybe gone away for a couple of days’ seclusion now that the show’s closed. Or maybe something.”

  McCabe sighed to himself. He knew all about denial and self-deception. About holding on to every possible thread of hope no matter how slender. “The police are still there, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah. A couple of squad cars and an evidence van. A van from the ME’s department came and took the Japanese woman away about half an hour ago. Your friend Astarita keeps telling me to go home and they’ll be in touch the minute they know anything.”

  “That’s good advice, Bobby. Are you there by yourself?”

  “Aside from about a dozen cops and fifty onlookers, yeah.”

  “Cathy’s not with you?”

  “No. She’s waiting at home.” There was a pause before he added, “She’s not Zoe’s mother.”

  Bobby’s first wife, Zoe’s mother, had been killed in an automobile accident nearly twelve years earlier. He married for the second time a couple of years after that.

  “I’m sure she still loves her.”

  He sensed Bobby wanting to say, Not like I do. But his brother held back. “Yes, yes, of course she does.”

  McCabe put a finger over his free ear to block out Siri’s computerized voice telling Maggie to merge onto the Bronx River Parkway South.

  Bobby kept talking. “With all the cops coming and going and people hanging out and watching like this was some kind of spectator sport . . . well, they were upsetting her too much. So I told her to go home, slug back a couple of martinis and I’d see her there. I also told her you were going to help find our daughter for us.” There was a short pause. “I wasn’t lying when I told her that, was I?”

  McCabe took a couple of seconds before answering. “No. No. You weren’t lying. I’m gonna drop Maggie at your place and then head downtown to talk to Astarita. Meantime I want you going home as well. There’s nothing you can do there except get in the way.”

  Bobby kept him on the line for another couple of minutes, venting more anxiety and then more denial. Finally he agreed to go home.

  When he ended the call, Maggie looked over at him. “Have the locals agreed to let you work on this?”

  “Not yet. I’m going downtown to find out if my old partner Art Astarita and his boss, a gu
y named Danny Lynch, will let me.”

  “And if they won’t?”

  “Then you and I work it unofficially. Just like we would have done when Conor Riordon tried to kill Emily up in Machias.” Emily Kaplan was Maggie’s oldest and best friend. Maggie had convinced the Maine Staties to let her help in the investigation. She damned near got herself killed in the process. It was only her brother Harlan’s skilled marksmanship that saved her life.

  Maggie followed GPS directions over the Triboro Bridge, now renamed the RFK Bridge in honor of Bobby Kennedy, into Manhattan. They swung around the long curve that fed them onto the FDR south. “Get out at the 63rd Street exit,” said McCabe.

  “That’s not what Siri’s saying.”

  “She doesn’t know everything.”

  “But you do?”

  “About the best ways to get to get around in New York? Yeah.”

  Maggie continued past the 63rd Street exit.

  “What are you doing.”

  “Me? I’m heading downtown with you to talk to Astarita. You better tell me how to get there.”

  “No. It’s better if I talk to him alone. He’ll clam up if you’re there. I’ll meet you back at the apartment.”

  Maggie waited a beat before reluctantly responding. “Okay, boss. Your call.”

  Following McCabe’s directions, Maggie pulled off at the East 54th Street exit and doubled back around to 2 Sutton Place South on the corner of 57th.

  “All right. I’ll tell you what Art says as soon as I can. For now, I’d like you to go upstairs. Apartment 14B. Your about-to-be sister in law may need a little comforting. And my brother, when and if he gets here, will need to be kept under house arrest. He’s more than a little crazed at the moment. FYI, he keeps a couple of handguns in the apartment and he knows how to use them. One was Tommy’s. The other my old man’s. The last thing we need is for him to grab one of them and start wandering around the Lower East Side looking for the kidnapper.”

  Chapter 23

  McCabe got back on the southbound FDR, which turned out to be a dumb mistake. The road was jammed with cars. Stop and start every few feet. Same volume of traffic heading north. In Manhattan, at five-thirty on a weekday afternoon he should have known better. Still irritated by his own stupidity, he called Astarita on his way downtown.