Bone Thief

by Thomas O'Callaghan

  It was six years since the accident that took the life of his daughter and nearly killed his wife. And in those six years, he had visited his daughter’s grave site religiously.

  “I brought you a present,” he murmured, reaching inside his jacket pocket, from which he produced an Egyptian alabaster music box. He placed it on the cold stone and lifted its lid. The first few notes of Vivaldi’s Concerto in D Major rang in the stillness of the graveyard.

  “This is for your collection,” he said.

  His cellular purred. “Driscoll here. When? Where? I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  He genuflected on the lawn and leaned the music box against the tombstone.

  “They need me,” he sighed, and kissed the stone.

  Chapter 4

  Driscoll guided his rain-swept Chevy along the meandering roadway that sliced through Prospect Park, then parked his cruiser alongside the yellow-and-black police tape that cordoned off the crime scene. He hated rain. He had promised his wife, Colette, that someday they would settle on an island with no clouds, discard his shield, collect his retirement pay, and never drift far from shore. His dream remained on hold.

  He swept back his sandy hair and approached the abandoned boathouse where the remains of a woman had been discovered. He winced at the expression of dread on the face of the rookie cop who greeted him. The bottom of the officer’s trousers was stained, and the stench of vomit hung in the air.

  “You first on the scene?” Driscoll asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “First homicide?”

  The officer nodded. “I feel like I’m caught in a nightmare staged at a slaughterhouse.”

  Inside the boathouse, the scent of fresh blood was dizzying. Its acidity assaulted Driscoll’s sinuses. He approached Larry Pearsol, the city’s Chief Medical Examiner, who was hunched over what was left of the victim. Jasper Eliot, Pearsol’s assistant, was busy photographing the remains.

  “What do we have, Larry?” asked Driscoll

  “Our guy is vicious. She’s gutted like a fish. I can’t find a bone in her, and the head, hands, and feet are missing.”

  The eviscerated remains lay sprawled on the rotting wooden floor. The boneless flesh vaguely resembled something human. Its breasts said female.

  The sight of the corpse disgusted Driscoll. This crime was particularly heinous, its perpetrator barbaric. What would drive someone to commit such an atrocity? And why take the head, hands, and feet? What was that all about?

  As he stared down at the mutilated remains, he was reminded of his mother’s mangled corpse after the New York City Fire Department cut her dismembered body out of the entangling steel of a Long Island Railroad passenger train. His mother had ended her life in the summer of 1969 by hurling herself in front of the oncoming train. Driscoll had been eight years old. He had accompanied his mother to the station that day. She had made him wait at the bottom of the stairs, telling him she had to meet the 10:39 from Penn Station. As the train had screeched into the station above, a river of what he believed to be fruit punch cascaded down, splattering the asphalt and the windshields of passing motorists. A woman had jumped out from behind the wheel of her car, screaming, “My God, that’s blood!”

  The memory of his mother’s suicide haunted him every day of his life.

  “Lieutenant? Are you all right?”

  It was the voice of Sergeant Margaret Aligante, a member of Driscoll’s elite team. She had just arrived on the scene.

  “I’m fine.”

  “For a minute there, I thought you had seen a ghost.”

  “Whad’ya make of it, Larry?” Driscoll asked, ignoring her remark.

  “Brutal. Capital B. And I’d say this is the drop site, not the murder site. No blood splatter. Forensic’s been all over the body and all over the site, but they’ve yet to come up with a single strand of trace evidence.”

  “This rain doesn’t help,” said Margaret.

  “Looks like the boys may have missed something,” said Driscoll as he leaned in over the butchered corpse. His eyes had detected a tiny fragment of material protruding from the mutilated labia. His gloved hand provided protection and discretion as he pulled the object from the fleshy wound.

  MCCABE, DEIRDRE

  ID NUMBER: 31623916

  EXPIRATION DATE: 2/04/08

  CLASS D CORRECTIVE LENSES

  ORGAN DONOR

  The New York State driver’s license showed the face of a youthful redhead smiling for the camera.

  “Here lies Deirdre McCabe,” said Driscoll. “And some sick bastard went to a lot of trouble to introduce us.”

  Chapter 5

  There is a sanctuary in this hustling city, a peninsula in the New York archipelago spanning the Atlantic Ocean and the greater Jamaica Bay. It is a community of freckle-faced children and burly blue-collar workers. They call it Toliver’s Point. This strip of land, a home to gulls awaiting its summertime awakening, lies trapped between sea and sky, situated just beyond the footing of the Marine Parkway Bridge on the outskirts of New York City.

  A wooden dock juts one hundred yards out into the bay. On its tip stood Driscoll. The Lieutenant was drawn to this particular spot. Drawn to its silence, to its natural coastal beauty. Behind him sat the tranquillity and calm of Toliver’s Point. But before him, on the other side of the two-mile-wide body of water, prowled a killer.

  Putting that reality aside, his thoughts drifted to earlier times. It was Colette who had discovered Toliver’s Point when, as a landscape painter at New York’s Art Students League, she had fulfilled her assignment to locate the most scenic spot in the city. She had found the location irresistible, and vowed to establish a home there as soon as she had raised $25,000 for the down payment. After five years as a pattern artist at Bertillon Textiles in Manhattan, she had saved enough money to put a deposit on her first piece of oceanfront real estate, a summer bungalow in Toliver’s Point.

  The first night Sergeant John Driscoll was invited to the peninsula, he thought he had been transported to some distant island where she was Calypso to a young and inexperienced Ulysses. After he and Colette married, the bungalow was renovated and winterized and became for them a year-round home.

  One afternoon in May, as Colette was driving Nicole to her weekly flute lesson, a Hess gasoline tanker side-swiped their Plymouth Voyager. The bleak images still haunted Driscoll’s consciousness. Colette’s twisted minivan, its shattered windshield, his daughter’s lifeless form, the overturned eighteen-wheeler, his wife’s mangled hand boasting the wedding band, the wail of the ambulance, the hellish dash to the hospital…his grieving.

  After the accident that robbed him of fourteen-year-old Nicole and threw his wife into a permanent state of unconsciousness, his world changed. Driscoll the happily married man and loving father became Driscoll the caretaker and grieving dad. The bungalow that was their paradise became an intensive care unit. In the middle of what was once her artist’s loft, Colette lay in a positioning bed surrounded by a Nellcor N395 pulse oximeter, an Invicare suction machine, a Pulmonetic LTV 950 home-care ventilator, a Kangaroo model 324 enteral feeding pump, and an EDR super-high-resolution electrocardiograph. Her inert body was wired to amber screens. Her circulation, respiration, and cardiac tremors were being vigilantly monitored by a multitude of sensors. Constantly attended by a registered nurse, Colette waited, listless, comatose.

  It had been no small feat to care for his wife at home. He had been forced to flex his authority and call in favors from friends in high places to convince the hospital’s administrative staff to condone such an unorthodox arrangement. But that’s where he wanted his Colette. The in-house treatment had been costly beyond his wildest imagination. He had to delve deeply into his pension to offset what was not covered by Blue Cross. But, to him, the expense was worth it.

  The Lieutenant left the dock and turned toward home. Sullivan’s Tavern, which lay at the beach end of the pier, beckoned. It had become a regular haunt for Driscoll, where ba
rtenders Jim and Christopher helped him wrestle with his demons of despair.

  But not tonight.

  In the pocket of his Burberry topcoat he carried a jar of natural emollient, skin cream brought from Trinidad by his friend, Detective Cedric Thomlinson. Made from natural fruit oils, it was widely used by Caribbean women to moisturize and nourish the skin, and Driscoll wanted the nurse to apply it to his wife’s inert body.

  The jar was deforming the pocket of his topcoat. Before he had known Colette, Driscoll wore polyester suits purchased at NBO on Washington’s Birthday, the great holiday of sales. He saluted patriotism with frugality. But Colette had introduced him to fine English tailoring. She believed it was more advantageous to own one exquisite suit, well made and designed, sewn to withstand the wear and tear of a harried life, than to boast five mediocre ones that were dull, uninspiring, and shoddily made. Her logic was irrefutable. Overnight, she had donated his wardrobe to the Salvation Army and bought him three luxurious suits at Barney’s annual sale, five Dior shirts at clearance, two Ferragamo ties with a gift certificate at Bloomingdale’s, two pairs of Kenneth Cole shoes at a One-Day-Only Two-For-One extravaganza, and her favorite men’s cologne, Halston 14.

  Driscoll had become hooked on fine English cloth—expensive wools and beautiful silks. His wardrobe became his only indulgence. After a purchase of a jacket by Bill Blass or a pair of slacks by Ralph Lauren, he could sense Colette’s approval. He still dressed for her, not for the unanimous distinction of being New York City’s best-dressed detective, nor for the moniker “Dapper John” his well-cut suits had earned him.

  Driscoll carried his height with a forceful stride that made his 6’2” stature seem intimidating. There was a swagger to his walk, not unlike that of Gary Cooper’s in High Noon. Precinct women found him irresistible, but Driscoll was impervious to feminine adulation.

  Another remarkable feature of Driscoll’s face was his expressive lips—lips that were kind and generous, that did not belong to his Celtic jawline but were more Mediterranean, almost Latin. They responded to his emotional states, dilating when contented, contracting under stress, vibrating when anxious. There was a nonverbal language his lips communicated. Colette had learned to read his heart and transcribe his thoughts by observing his lips’ tremors. Because of those lips, Driscoll couldn’t boast a poker face that, in his profession, would have been an asset.

  And now, his lips thin, he walked the deserted shoreline, heading for the bungalow and Colette. Arriving on the porch, he turned the key in the lock of their front door. Oil paintings that once seemed to have lived and breathed welcomed him. They too had become lifeless, a silent salute to their creator, who lay motionless in the center of the loft. The scent of fresh-cut peonies and artist’s turpentine had been replaced by the sharpness of Betadine antiseptic and the sterile smell of bleached hospital linen.

  Colette lay with her eyelids closed and her lips parted, inhaling pure air brought to her lungs through plastic tubes that invaded her nasal cavity. Her skin was ashen, lusterless. Her once radiant hair was matted, flattened on her scalp.

  “Bon soir, ma cherie,” he murmured, kissing her forehead.

  “We had a lovely day,” sang Colette’s Jamaican nurse, Lucinda, who was busy massaging his wife’s feet.

  Driscoll unpocketed the jar of emollient, and Lucinda’s eyes widened.

  “I haven’t seen that since I was a little girl in Kingston,” she said, unscrewing the jar’s lid and inhaling the fragrance. “Ain’t nothin’ better for the skin.” She began to apply the cream to Colette’s ankles.

  “You can take a break when you’re done, Lucinda. I’ll fill in for you,” said Driscoll.

  The nurse replaced the cap on the jar of emollient and placed the jar on Colette’s nightstand. She excused herself and headed for her room.

  Driscoll was alone with his wife. He reclined in the armchair next to her bed, where electronic instruments monitored life signs, supervising the maintenance of her existence.

  “Let me tell you about my day,” he said. “I visited the dock at Sullivan’s. Remember, honey, the time we launched the catamaran from there? Your face went ashen when we hit the water, and whiter still when the first wave nearly toppled us over.”

  Colette’s breathing faltered. The respirator displayed a quavering line. After ten seconds, an alarm would ring. Driscoll leaped from his chair and watched the digital chronometer showing the passing of seconds. Three…four…five. Panic seized him. Was she going to die right here and now with him watching, powerless to keep her alive? Seven…eight. My God, he was losing her.

  No. Her breathing returned to normal. The line showed her lungs were working again, ventilating her body.

  What had just happened? Had she been dreaming? Was he in her dream? What had taken her breath away?

  Driscoll loosened his tie and collapsed back into the chair. He flicked on the room’s Sony receiver and loaded a new CD into its feed. The sound of Jean-Pierre Rampal’s flute filled the loft. He rambled to the kitchen, retrieved a bag of frozen scallops from the Frigidaire, and placed them into the microwave to defrost. It was Colette who had introduced him to French cooking, and he had relinquished his diet of Quarter Pounders and fries for the nuances of coq au vin, agneau à l’estragon, escalopes à la colonnade, and tranche de boeuf au madere.

  Tonight’s dinner would be coquilles chambrette, a combination of sea scallops, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, cognac, and wine. It took him fifteen minutes to prepare the dish. He brought his meal to the easy chair beside Colette’s bed.

  Suddenly the heart monitor beeped. The pattern of electronic zigzagging had changed. The rhythm seemed more agitated.

  “Lucinda!” he shouted.

  The nurse came running in, dressed in a robe.

  “There’s a change in her heartbeat! It’s up to 98!”

  “I see that,” Lucinda said, eyeing the monitor. “But, she’s not in any danger, sir. It would have to climb above 110 for there to be a problem.”

  “Why did it change?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  She turned a knob on the monitor that darkened the screen, then turned the knob back to its original position. The agitated pattern returned.

  “Machine’s working fine,” she reported.

  The music stopped. It was the last selection on the Rampal CD. The zigzagging of the heart monitor returned to its original pattern.

  “She’s back to 62,” Lucinda announced. “It dropped when the music stopped.”

  Driscoll hurried over to the wall unit that held his stereo system and hit play on the CD player. He then depressed the right arrow button eleven times until he had recalled the last selection that had played. The sound of Rampal’s melodious flute filled the loft again.

  “That’s La Ronde des Lutins, from Bazzini,” said Driscoll, his eyes riveted to his wife’s chalky face.

  “Her heart rate is climbing again. It’s up to 99!” gasped the nurse. “She’s reacting to the music. But that would be impossible.”

  “That was Nicole’s favorite flute piece,” said Driscoll, absently. “She used to practice it over and over again.”

  “Lord Almighty,” breathed Lucinda.

  Sadness and despair filled Driscoll as the musician’s crystalline notes played on. He knew there was no chance Colette would awaken from her coma. He placed no hope in that. There was only one unresolved question rolling around in his head. He knew it would go unanswered, but he wondered nonetheless. Was it his daughter or his wife that was now speaking to him from the grave?

  Chapter 6

  To Driscoll, Sergeant Margaret Aligante was a looker. Five-feet-seven, and a figure that would rival any of Veronese’s models. She carried her High Renaissance body with confidence, using her physical charisma to her advantage. Driscoll knew that suspects she interrogated were often distracted by her curvaceousness and sensuality. She was a Brooklyn girl, born and raised in Red Hook, an Italian neighborhood where the men work
ed as firemen, cops, and truck drivers. It surprised Driscoll that, as a teen, she had run with the Pagano Persuaders, a street gang that intimidated ten city blocks. But that had soon ended. She had decided to become a police officer. She had registered at John Jay College, completing the four-year curriculum with a 3.96 grade-point average; complemented her education with a smattering of courses in criminal behavioral science, forensic psychology, and profiling methodology; and studied the martial arts of aikido and tae kwon do.

  Margaret graduated from the Police Academy in 1991. Her first assignment as a patrolman had her monitoring the arteries of the 72nd Precinct, between Third and Fifteenth Streets in Brooklyn. In six years, she had earned her gold shield, passed the Sergeant’s test, and was working undercover with Vice. After that, it was Homicide with Lieutenant Driscoll for the past four years.

  Driscoll had asked Margaret to sit in as he conferred with Gerard McCabe, the murder victim’s husband. A somber silence filled Driscoll’s office. The two police officers waited compassionately for McCabe to pull himself together. Then Driscoll said, “You should know we don’t have a DNA profile yet, but it is your wife’s license.”

  “What kind of a person would do this to a woman?” McCabe’s hands were trembling, and his face was as pale as chalk.

  “Your wife’s Volvo was found parked in a retail strip on Ralph Avenue and Avenue L. Would that have been a normal stop for her?” Margaret asked, not answering his question.

  “She must have stopped at Video-Rama, on her way back from the mall. The tapes were two days late. She said she’d drop them off for me. I’m a pharmacist who never has a chance to get out from behind the counter. My God, does that make me responsible?”

  Driscoll understood his guilt. “Mr. McCabe, it was a simple shopping trip with a stop at the video store, the kind of errand thousands of housewives make every day, in every town in the country. What happened to your wife was not part of the picture. Something ugly and unexpected intervened.” He looked at the distraught man with sympathy, trying to keep his own emotions at bay. “There are some personal questions I’ll need to ask.”