by Osborne, Jon
Shaughnessy felt her cheeks suffuse with a warm rush of blood that chased away some of the chill still dancing on her face from outside. Wasn’t very often that she got such a glowing report from the general public, though. And she couldn’t deny that it felt nice. Smiling back at Churchill, she said, “Thank you very much for saying that, ma’am. It really means a lot to me. And God bless you, too.”
Finally exiting the office with the cheesy smile still planted firmly on her lips, Shaughnessy descended the cement stairs again before stepping back out into the swirling wind just outside the scuffed-brick building. She waited for less than three minutes before a portly nun wearing a long string of wooden prayer beads around her impossibly fleshy neck pushed through the same glass door she’d just pushed through a few moments earlier.
The nun was holding a tiny little thing wearing a pink Hello Kitty jacket and matching woolen cap by the hand. She nodded to Shaughnessy and said, “Hello, Agent Shaughnessy. I’m Sister Myra.” Gesturing to the little girl standing at her side, she added, “This here is Katie Morgenstern, hero of the week last week, if you haven’t heard by now.”
Shaughnessy smiled. Damn right, she’d heard. The kid was a hero.
Three feet away, Christ’s bride bent down until her face was even with the little girl’s. “Katie, this is Agent Meghan Shaughnessy,” she said. “She wants to talk you about the bad man who came into our school last week and hurt you. Would that be OK with you?”
The little girl nodded and chewed gently on her lower lip. Shifting her shining blue eyes that were stationed behind colorful purple glasses up at Shaughnessy for a second or two, she returned her gaze to her teacher. “Mmhmn,” the little girl said, nodding more vigorously now. “Like I told you and my mommy and daddy and Mrs. Churchill, I remember everything about him. I’ve got a really good memory.”
The nun straightened up and rubbed the little girl’s back over her puffy coat. “I know you do, sweetheart. Heck, you win the classroom spelling bee nearly every single week. You’ve got a great memory.”
The little girl’s face lit up like a sunburst at the praise coming from her teacher while Sister Myra shifted her gaze back to Shaughnessy. Gesturing to the glass door that she and the little girl had just exited with a quick motion of her habited head, she said, “I know that Mrs. Churchill will be watching you from her office, but would you mind very much if I stayed just inside there and kept an eye on things, too? The glass is thick, Agent Shaughnessy. I won’t be able to hear a thing. And if I do hear anything, I can promise you that it will be between me and God and the two of us alone. You’ve got my word on that.”
Shaughnessy shook her head. Mind? Hell no, she didn’t mind. Besides, she didn’t blame the nun or the secretary one little bit for being on high alert like this, probably would’ve considered it pretty weird if they hadn’t been on high alert like this. After the terrible thing that had happened here last Friday afternoon – to this little girl standing here with them, no less – everyone should be on high alert right now. It was the only intelligent way to go about things. The only responsible way to go about things. “That would be just fine, Sister,” Shaughnessy said. “Not a problem at all.”
The nun gave her a small smile before turning back to the little girl. “I’ll be just a few feet away watching you, Katie,” she said, “so you don’t need to be afraid. Just answer the nice lady’s questions the best you can, OK?”
The little girl nodded. “I will, Sister Myra. And don’t worry; I’m not afraid. Not even a little bit.”
The girl’s teacher gave Katie’s shoulder a quick squeeze before turning away. “OK, angel. You’re the absolute best. I want you to know that I’m very proud of you.”
When the nun had gone back inside the building and had positioned herself just inside the glass door, Shaughnessy smiled down at the little girl. “Thank you so much for talking to me like this, Katie,” she said, widening her smile until her cheeks began to ache, trying her best to put the girl as much at ease as she possibly could. “This is such a big help to me.” Shaughnessy reached inside her blazer and extracted a plastic silver badge from the interior pocket. “And this is my way of saying thanks to you, honey. You can now consider yourself an official honorary member of the FBI.”
The little girl smiled delightedly in surprise, showing off an adorable grin that was missing its two front teeth. “Neato!” she exclaimed, reaching out and taking the badge. She examined it closely, turning it over and over again in her small hands. “Just wait until my brother sees this. He’ll be so darn jealous. It’ll be great!”
Shaughnessy widened her own grin. She just couldn’t help herself. The little girl’s smile was infectious. And the plastic badges worked miracles with kids. Always had. She was thankful she’d thought to bring one along today. From the look of things, the simple gesture hadn’t just broken the ice; it had absolutely smashed it. “So, Katie,” Shaughnessy said, wanting to strike while the iron was hot. “Can you tell me about the bad guy who hurt you last week? Do you remember what he looked like?”
The smile ran away from the little girl’s face at the abrupt shifting of the subject. “Yep,” she said, nodding again while she tucked the plastic badge safely away into the side pocket of her pink jacket. “I sure do. He was a little bit taller than you, and a little bit skinnier than you, too.”
Shaughnessy grimaced before she had a chance to stop herself. Looked as though she’d need to keep a little closer eye on her weight, after all. Pride came before a fall, and kids weren’t in the least bit shy about putting a swellheaded adult like her back into their proper place with a well-placed honest assessment or two. “Did the bad guy say anything to you?” Shaughnessy asked, making a mental note to increase her number of miles on the treadmill each day. Clearly, five just wasn’t cutting it anymore.
The little girl frowned at the question, looking embarrassed. “Mmhmn,” she said quietly. “I remember what he said to me. He told me why don’t I just go to the bathroom by myself.”
Shaughnessy frowned back, not understanding the little girl meaning. “What does that mean, honey?” she asked. “Do you have any idea of why he might have said that to you?”
The little girl cut a furtive glance back at Sister Myra, who was still standing a few feet away just inside the doorway. Shifting her stare back to Shaughnessy, she lowered her voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “He said that to me because I asked him to take me to the bathroom. I had forgotten where it was and I needed to pee really bad.”
Shaughnessy smiled gently. Hell, she’d once peed her own pants in the second grade, and she still remembered the unpleasant feeling all too well for herself. Her fellow students had called her “Pee Pants” for the rest of the year. “Ah, you don’t need to be embarrassed about something like that, sweetheart,” she said, waving a hand in the cold air to chase away the little girl’s thoroughly unwarranted shame. “I actually peed my pants once when I was just a little bit older than you. The other kids called me ‘Pee Pants’ for the rest of the year and my brothers still haven’t let me forget about it. They still bring it up every single Christmas when I see them. But after that did the bad man ev-”
Before Shaughnessy could finish her question, the sharp report of a rifle cracked in the air. A split-second later, her mind abruptly went blank, faded to black, just like the final episode of The Sopranos.
Meghan Shaughnessy didn’t hear Katie Morgenstern’s horrified screams of terror as her discharged brain matter splattered wetly across the little girl’s face, dirtying up the lenses of her colorful purple glasses with disgusting, chunky streaks of gray and white and red.
CHAPTER 22
Shielded by the FBI agent’s own vehicle, Jack Yuntz lowered his rifle in satisfaction and tucked his still-smoking weapon back into its nylon case. Working the zipper, he slung the strap over his left shoulder and turned away from the bloody scene he’d just wrought with the wonderful sounds of the little girl’s screaming echoing in his ears
from fifty yards away. Jack shook himself as hot jolts of adrenalin zipped giddily through his veins, causing his skin to buzz with an intense electrical charge. He felt especially proud of himself right now. And why the hell shouldn’t he feel especially proud of himself right now? It had been an absolutely perfect shot.
Jack widened his smile despite the mad pounding of his heartbeat inside his chest, which was slamming away so powerfully against his ribcage that he feared it might crack a few of the bones. Making his way carefully down the embankment, he followed the rocky shore of Lake Erie half a mile west before finally climbing back up the modest cliff ten minutes later and into the parking lot of the flower shop where he’d parked his latest getaway car, which once again had been purchased dirt-cheap off Craigslist: an El Camino with no hubcaps this time.
Tossing his rifle in ahead of him as the ice-cold wind whipped in hard off the lake and froze his ears solidly to the sides of his head, Jack slid behind the steering wheel of the faded brown shit-box and attempted to crank the stubborn old engine into life. Didn’t work at first, which caused several interminable moments of panic that soured his stomach to the point of making him want to throw up. But then on the fourth try the engine finally turned over. Jack breathed out a grateful sigh of relief at the supremely welcome grumbling in his ears. Thank God for small favors. And for the big ones, too, for that matter. Blissfully, the four hundred bucks he’d spent on the vehicle hadn’t been a total waste. And with any luck at all, the El Camino still had a few miles left in her tired old rubber legs. It least, it had better have a few more miles left in her tired old rubber legs. About a thousand or so of them, if he’d calculated correctly – enough to make the long voyage from Cleveland to New York City and back again.
Jack concentrated on controlling his excited breathing as he pulled out of the parking lot of the flower shop and made a left-hand turn onto East Erie Street before losing himself in the steady stream of traffic that was flowing down the busy road, being extremely mindful to stick to the posted speed limit. The car was enough of a sore thumb on its own. He certainly didn’t need to be tripped up over something as stupid as getting a fifty-dollar moving violation. Not now. Not after everything he’d already gone through up to this point in the game.
Jack shifted in his seat and resisted the urge to pinch himself at just how easy this latest kill had been as he pointed the El Camino in the direction of Interstate 90 for his upcoming trip. Still, much like the moves that had been executed by Sergei Michalovic and Edward O’Hara during the Chessboard Killer slayings out in Manhattan the previous year, everything in the FBI was so goddamned predictable.
Too bad for them but an absolute godsend for him.
Jack chuckled out loud despite the heightened state of his raw nerves right now. Still, even he knew that it hadn’t been God who’d sent him here to finish up this deadly little game of modified chess that had begun on a chilly spring day with the killing of Jack’s very own father. It had been the devil himself. And now the time had come for the devil’s little helper to visit what probably marked the last remaining angel here on Earth.
After all this time spent apart, the time had finally come for him to go see Molly again.
And why not? He’d missed her.
CHAPTER 23
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Bruce Blankenship twisted up his face into a mask of utter disbelief. “Say that again,” he ordered.
Helen Morgan held a tear-soaked tissue to her badly damaged eyes, dabbing first at the corner of her left eye, and then at her right. They were in Interview Room Number Three of the Fairview Park Police Department. She was seated at a rickety metal folding chair at a small wooden table while he hovered above her two feet away. “Say what again?” she sobbed.
Blankenship gritted his teeth. Though usually a softie when it came to such things, he didn’t feel even the slightest bit guilty for grilling this woman so hard, not even considering the sad-sack state of her thoroughly beat-up appearance right now. And why the hell should he feel guilty for grilling her so hard? She deserved it after what she’d done to the poor Paulson baby. And a hell of a lot worse than this, too. She’d gotten off easy with a simple punch to the face; he knew that. She’d heal eventually, would get over her wounds, at least in the physical sense. And though Blankenship had never really believed in the death penalty as it was against his Catholic religion, he honestly thought that he could make an exception in this case. And if anything should happen to that baby – if so much as a single hair on the boy’s head was harmed – he could definitely make an exception. “Tell me the name of the man you say coerced you into kidnapping the Paulson baby again,” Blankenship snarled.
Morgan balled up her tissue in her shaking hands. Heavy streaks of black mascara ran down her cheeks. A hard plastic surgical device was the only thing holding her broken nose together. Her swollen eyes looked like those of a cartoon raccoon’s from all the purplish bruising around them. “He told me his name was Nicholas Sarkozy,” she said, still sniffling.
Blankenship glanced up at the surveillance camera that was mounted near the ceiling in the southeast corner of the room where two walls met. He shook his head in disgust before turning back to Morgan. “You do realize that Nicholas Sarkozy is the name of the former president of France, don’t you?” he asked, not even trying to disguise the icy edge of contempt lacing his voice. Still, the only thing worse in this world than a bad person was a dumb bad person – and in Helen Morgan’s case he’d clearly found someone who fit that bill to a T.
Morgan’s lower lip trembled. “No, I didn’t realize that,” she said. “I don’t really follow politics all that closely, though.”
Only by the slimmest of margins was Blankenship able to keep himself from smacking his palm hard into his forehead in exasperation. Fighting back the overpowering urge – at least for the time being – he shook his head again. “Fine. Then just run through everything from the beginning again. Take it from the top and don’t leave anything out.”
Morgan shifted uncomfortably in her folding chair. An untouched can of Coke sat on the table in front of her. Beads of condensation dotted the iconic red-and-white label, slipping down the surface onto the table every few seconds or so and collecting in a small puddle like the tears that were sliding down Morgan’s face. Taking a deep, snuffling breath through her rearranged proboscis, she said, “OK. Let’s see here. I met him at the Oak Barrel Bar over on Euclid Avenue downtown Friday night.”
“At what time?”
Morgan shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe around ten p.m. or so. I was drinking a lot that night so it’s pretty hard for me to remember exactly.”
Blankenship flexed his fingers; wanting badly to punch something himself right now. He made a quick mental note to see if there were any gas stations or ATMs near the entrance to the Oak Barrel Bar. Maybe a security camera had picked up an image of the kidnapper’s face. Worth a shot, anyway. “OK,” he said. “Go on.”
Morgan lifted her tissue to her eyes again. “Do you have any more Kleenex on you?” she asked. “This one is too used to be any good now.”
Blankenship sighed and reached into the inside jacket pocket of his leather jacket before flipping a portable package of Puffs across the table to her. With three-year-old twin girls at home who were always in one stage of a cold or another, he knew better than to ever leave the house without extras. Never knew when they might come in handy.
Morgan extracted a fresh tissue from the packet and resumed the wiping of her leaking eyes. “Anyway, from there he had a waitress ask me if he could buy me a drink.”
Blankenship nodded again and made another mental note, this time to interview everyone who’d been working at the Oak Barrel Bar on Friday night. Might turn up some more usable information, and he needed to cover every last base here by himself until the task force had been assembled. Could mean the difference between a happy ending to this story and a tragic one. “Then what happened?” he asked.
&nb
sp; Morgan looked away from him, seemingly embarrassed now. A flash of color flooded into her pale white cheeks. “Then we went back to his hotel and had sex,” she said quietly.
Blankenship widened his eyes in surprise. His skin crawled. Bingo. If Morgan had engaged in sex with the mystery man, there’d be some DNA evidence left behind. Locard’s Exchange Principle: every contact leaves a trace. “Do you still have the clothing you wore last Friday night?” he asked.
Morgan nodded. “Yes. They’re in the dirty laundry hamper, but I still have them.”
Blankenship took off his coat and draped it over the chair opposite Morgan, happy to hear this latest bit of welcome information. If nothing else, obtaining a search warrant for Morgan’s home shouldn’t prove difficult. The citizens of Cleveland were baying for blood – lots of it – and they wanted that blood to come from Helen Morgan until they could get it from the throat of the ravenous wolf who’d taken the baby to God-only-knew-what corner of the world. “What hotel did you go to?” he asked.
“The Four Seasons downtown,” Morgan answered quickly. “Very nice place.”
Blankenship ignored the wistful tone of the woman’s voice. Clearly, the idiot still didn’t realize just how big of a shit-pile she’d stepped in. Still, this was good. The Four Seasons should have plenty of surveillance footage for him to go through. Maybe identifying the kidnapper would be as simple as just checking the guest log. He’d caught criminals in the past working with far less. “Great,” he said. “So tell me what this guy looked like again.”
Morgan straightened in her chair. Despite the dire circumstances she found herself in at the moment, she seemed almost proud to relate the particulars. “He was very handsome,” she said, pressing her wind-burned lips together in obvious contentment. “About six-two or six-three and maybe a hundred and eighty pounds or so. Just a little bit smaller than you.” She paused and gave Blankenship the once-over, sliding her gaze over his body and causing him to stifle a shiver against it. “Very fit like you, too. He obviously worked out a lot. Wavy brown hair and dark brown eyes. A real looker. Sort of looked like Ricky Martin to me, only a little bit older.”