by Henry Hack
“Oh, is the out-of-town FBI agent lonely?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Sure,” she said, taking her card and a pen out of her purse. “Here’s my number and home address. Pick me up at six-thirty. I’ll make a reservation for seven at a nice place.”
She smiled and walked out the door. Havlek stood there with his mouth open and Allison’s card in his hand. “Wow!” he said.
“Whaddya know,” Spider said. “Superman and Lois Lane have a date.”
When Mike Havlek left I said to Spider, “Here we go again – cops and reporters. Dangerous combination.”
Spider just looked at me and nodded. He knew I was referring to his almost affair with the late reporter, the beautiful Tiffany Adams-Kim, of a major New York newspaper – an event that we had both agreed to keep buried in the past. That was the first slight reference I had made to it since it occurred a few years ago, and I let it go now without a further word.
We waited. Mike Havlek flew back down to Washington to assist on a couple of other possible serial murder cases and Allison went back to her regular police beat. Three days later, Detective Gennaro called me once more and said, “Danny, I may have something more for you. This is real interesting.”
I came immediately to mental attention wondering what Walt Gennaro might have now, and how it pertained to the Chandler case. “Go,” I said.
“Yesterday morning Queens Homicide was called to the scene of a double murder in Bellerose. An elderly couple – George and Eleanor Weston – were found murdered in their apartment. The bullets recovered from their bodies, three in each…”
“…were from a .357 S & W Magnum,” I interrupted.
“Wrong. They were from a .40 caliber automatic. I’ll give you one guess as to which particular .40 caliber auto it could be.”
“You gotta be kidding, Walt. The one used in the California murders?”
“Bingo! Danny Boy. I knew you were a great detective.”
After I hung up with Gennaro I yelled for Spider and shared the information with him. He said, “So the same gun used to murder several women in California is used to murder a couple in Queens. What’s the connection? If Frankie Chandler did this, what were the Weston’s to him? And if it was Frankie, why didn’t he use the revolver he killed Angela with?”
“Don’t know the answers, Spider, but we’ll sure find out. I’m a bit confused, though. Do we have two different perps out there? Or do you think Frankie Chandler is twisting our tails by switching guns?”
“Who knows? Think we should call Superman?”
“Yes,” I said, “but let’s not call Lois Lane until we can figure this puzzle out. Let’s go with the assumption that Angela did use that .357 magnum to kill her intended husband and took it with her when she drove cross-country. That would explain how it got out here. And then Frankie finds it in her apartment – maybe she tried to pull it on him – and now he has it.”
“But he uses the automatic to kill those two old folks.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And he still may have the revolver, too.”
“And he killed the Weston’s because…?”
“Who the fuck knows, Spider? We’re homicide detectives. Let’s figure it out.”
“Sure,” Spider said shaking his head. “A piece of cake.”
And then a dim bulb turned on somewhere in the back of my mind – way back to when I was a rookie cop called to the scene of Jim Chandler’s accidental fall down the cellar stairs. The bulb grew brighter as I remember Social Worker Pam Saunders relating to me and Wally Mason her conversation with Jim Chandler’s parents and them telling her of Jim’s first wife. The bulb now blasted into white brilliance as the name jumped into the forefront of my mind – Ellen it was, Ellen Weston. “Spider,” I said. “The Weston’s are Frankie Chandler’s biological grandparents, the parents of his real mother, Ellen Weston.”
Spider smiled and said, “See, just like I said – a piece of cake. Now would you care to tell me how the hell you just figured that out, Sherlock?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson. I’ll tell you all about it on the way to Queens tomorrow.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
After I had made my decision to abandon my son for the second time, I tried to put him out of my mind. I couldn’t do it. If anything, I thought of him more now than before the news story of the death of his father. I knew Jim Chandler had been a good man and this was confirmed when the story said he had kept Frankie after his first wife left him and then eventually remarried. My guilt was assuaged by the fact that my son was in what appeared to be a loving two-parent home.
Now that home was shattered – the father dead – the mother gone – and the son was alone in the world. This was now my chance at true redemption for my original sin. I could have reclaimed my son and given him a loving home with a loving mother. But I hadn’t done so, and now as the years passed, the consequences of that decision weighed increasingly heavy on my conscience. Oh, I went to mass every day and confession every week, and led a good Christian life keeping my vows of poverty and celibacy. But deep inside my core, my one great sin – now compounded – ate at my soul much like a cancer eats at one’s body. If there was indeed a hell, I knew I would burn there forever. True redemption for me was now unattainable.
And then, one fine early summer day, everything changed and my redemption became a possibility. I had dismissed my second-grade class and was walking through the park-like grounds of the campus, trees and bushes now almost in full bloom, when a young man approached me and said, “Sister Audrey?”
“Yes,” I said realizing that maybe I had known him in the distant past.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
I studied his face which was mostly covered in a trim black beard. His scalp was bald, but it was obvious that was intentional as it was thickly covered with tiny dots of black. It was his eyes that drew my attention. “No,” I said, “but you do look a bit familiar. Were you one of my former students?”
“No,” he said and pointed at a nearby garden bench. “May we sit down?”
He guided me to the bench and we both sat. He took my hand – for some reason I did not protest – and he said, “Mommy, I’m your son. I’m Frankie Chandler.”
I was shocked. I could not utter a word. I stared at him and had no doubts that he was who he just said he was – my long lost son.
“Are you all right?” he asked, deep concern on his face.
My response was to throw my arms around him and burst into tears. He held me tight for several minutes until my sobs tailed off. He said, “I finally found you, Mommy. After all these years, I finally found you.”
All my guilt crashed down upon my shoulders at the sound of his words. Without looking up at him I murmured, “Have you come to kill me, Frankie, for what I did to you all those years ago?”
“What? Kill you? No, Mommy, I have come to love you.”
“Love me? I am undeserving of your love. I abandoned you as a baby. I…”
“Mommy,” he said, “I know all that. That’s in the past. We are here together, right now, in the present. All our misdeeds don’t matter. Our only direction is forward.”
I looked up at him and smiled, “Oh, Frankie,” I said, “if only it were that easy – to forget how bad my past sins are.”
“I have my share of past sins, too,” he said. “Some very bad ones.”
“What bad things could you – my son – have done?”
He smiled at me and said, “And what sins could you – my mother – have committed. You are a nun.”
“Even nuns and priests commit sins, Frankie. Have you confessed your sins to your priest?”
“No, Mommy. Have you confessed yours?”
Things seemed to be getting too serious, so I said, “Why don’t we shelve our sins, be they real or imagined, for some other time, Frankie?”
“Great idea,” he said with a big smile. “Let’s get to know each other a bit and fill in the gaps, the long gaps, in our
lives.”
I smiled back at him and took his hand and said, “Let’s take a walk and we’ll have a long, long talk.”
We stood up and began to walk when Frankie said, “You never questioned me when I told you I was your son. How do you know I am Frankie Chandler?”
“I know,” I said. “What mother doesn’t know her own child?”
He smiled and then dropped my hand which he had been holding. He said, “It may not be a good idea to stroll around hand in hand with a nun.”
I laughed and said, “Oh, yes, they’ll think I’m a cougar in disguise trying to seduce a handsome young man!”
We talked for about an hour and Frankie told me about his past life in foster homes and his time in the Navy and his jobs. I sensed he glossed over things quite a bit, that things were a lot tougher in his past than what he was really telling me, but I did not question him. I told him my rather boring but peaceful life as a teaching nun, but I did not tell him that I chose not to act when Angela deserted him. As we had agreed, we put the telling of our past sins on hold for awhile. When it became obvious that both of us were not going to open up further to each other at this time – a decision seemingly reached by some type of telepathy between us – I said, “So, my son, where do we go from here?”
“I want to be part of your life, Mommy,” he said. “A big part. That is, if that’s okay with you?”
“Of course it is,” I said.
“I’m between jobs right now,” he said, “but I have quite a bit of cash stashed away. I could get a room out here to be closer to you.”
“That would be fine,” I said. “The school year is over in a few weeks; maybe we can go away on a little vacation and really get to know each other.”
“I like that idea,” he said, “we can figure out our future.”
“I like teaching,” I said. “But I can do that anyplace.”
“You mean you’d leave the church?”
“Well, maybe. Who knows? You may be the force in my life that could make me make a real change – a brand new beginning.”
After exchanging telephone numbers – my room and his cell – we agreed to meet often and continue to get to know each other better. The next night he took me to a nice steak dinner in Southampton, and the days he didn’t come over to the school, we chatted on the phone. Everything was going fine until one day Frankie said, “Mommy, have you noticed any suspicious people around the area?”
“Whatever do you mean?” I asked.
“I’ve gotten a few threatening calls on my cell phone from bill collectors,” he said. “I think they have me confused with some other Chandler, but I had the feeling I was being followed the other night.”
“I don’t recall seeing any strange people around, but I’ll keep a sharp eye out.”
“Thanks, Mommy. I’ll try to clear up this misunderstanding as soon as I can.”
Now when someone plants a thought like that in your head it causes you to become extra alert and suspicious. And what do you know, over the next few days I did see some strange men around – two to be exact. I never saw them together – one was white, one black – but I swear that when I did see them they were looking right at me. And when I looked back at them, they averted their eyes and walked the other way. Then I wondered if I was just suspicious or getting paranoid?
I didn’t see them again, but I did see other strangers from time to time over the next few days. I had the feeling, although I didn’t know why, that these men, and a woman as well, were law enforcement officers and they were observing me. But why? Then I thought of Frankie and his unmentioned “past sins” and I wondered if somehow they were looking for him and knew of our new found relationship. Then I dismissed this whole paranoid scenario and looked forward to seeing my son again in two days. He was going to meet me here at school and treat me to a Friday night seafood dinner at a fancy restaurant on the water. Then I changed my mind again and figured maybe I’d mention these strangers to him during our phone call tonight. Better to be safe than sorry, right?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The next morning Spider and I drove into the Queens Homicide office in Forest Hills and met with Detective Sam Hervell who had handled the murder cases of George and Eleanor Weston. “Gennaro in Ballistics tells me you might have a connection between one of your cases and the Weston’s.” he said.
“Maybe we do, Sam,” I said. “We think the gun used to kill the Weston’s, which as you now know was used in the L.A. murders, may be in possession of the perpetrator of our murder case in Farmingdale.”
“Although,” Spider said, “he used a .357 magnum in that case.”
“And your perp is?” Sam asked.
“A guy by the name of Frankie Chandler,” I said.
“What’s the connection?”
“We were hoping you could confirm something I recently remembered from a long time ago.” I said. “I believe the Weston’s had a daughter named Ellen and she is Frankie Chandler’s real mother. Can you dig out your case file and then we’ll put our heads together?”
“Let’s put some coffee on and we’ll do just that,” Sam said.
After reading Sam’s case and giving him all the info we had on Chandler so far, the three of us came to the same conclusion, albeit a shaky unsubstantiated one, that Frankie discovered the Weston’s were his real mother’s parents – his grandparents – and he had killed them after finding out – or not finding out – the whereabouts of his mother.
“Sam,” Spider said, “was there anything in the Weston’s apartment that indicated they had a daughter? An album? A picture on the dresser?”
“Not a damn thing,” Sam said. “No photos of children at all. Just one of George and Eleanor, when they were maybe fifteen years younger, posing with another couple in their same age range.”
“Any idea who that couple was?” I asked.
“Maybe George’s brother. Hold on a sec.”
Sam flipped through his case file and said, “His brother’s name is Edward. I’m pretty sure he handled the funeral details. Lives in Jersey.”
“Is anyone in the Weston’s apartment now?” Spider asked.
“I don’t think so,” Sam said. “It was on a long-term lease and I don’t know if Edward removed anything yet.”
“So you released the scene?” Spider asked.
“Yeah, so you can go poke around there all you want,” Sam replied.
“We’ll do that now and then we’ll go see Edward Weston tomorrow,” Danny said. “Maybe he knows of a daughter his brother may have fathered.”
“Good luck, guys,” Sam said. “Go solve your case – and solve mine, too, while you’re at it.”
“Don’t we all wish,” Spider said laughing as we headed out the door.
The building super, Vladis Kauskas, obligingly opened the door to apartment 4E and left us alone saying, “Let me know venn you done, pliz.”
We searched for over an hour, under carpets, in the drawers, between the clothes, behind the radiator covers, in the freezer, but got the same results as Sam had gotten – nothing. Nothing in the way of showing that the Weston’s ever had a daughter or any other children. I looked at my notes and found Edward Weston’s New Jersey phone number and dialed it from the apartment’s phone which had not yet been disconnected. He answered on the third ring and I identified myself and told him where I was and got right to the point. I said, “Mr. Weston, did your brother and his wife have any children?”
“Yes,” he said. “One daughter.”
I took a deep breath and nodded at Spider also giving him a thumbs up signal. “Mr. Weston, can my partner and I drive over to your place tomorrow? I need to know everything I can about your niece.…”
“Ellen is her name,” he said. “And I can save you the trip. I’m coming to the apartment tomorrow to clean it out. Most everything I’m going to donate to the Salvation Army. I’ll only keep any pertinent memorabilia.”
“There may not be much of that,” I said. �
�There are no indications here that a daughter ever existed.”
“That does not surprise me,” he said. “My brother was a stubborn fool. For a professed person of Christian faith there was not a forgiving bone in his body.”
“When do you plan to arrive?” I asked.
“Around eleven, after the rush hour, and I’ll bring what I have of Ellen.”
“Do you have any photos?”
“Several, and I have her wedding invitation, too.”
“Of her marriage to Jim Chandler?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Weston, Thank you.”
I hung up the phone and told Spider what I had found out. He said, “Finally a break. Maybe we can track her down before Frankie finds her. Maybe we can save her life before he kills her, too.”
“Do you think he means to kill her?” I asked.
My question seemed to surprise Spider and he said, “Well, he killed Angela.”
“But she wasn’t his mother, was she?”
“No, but…but Danny, who knows how a psycho’s mind works? He’s killed a lot of people so far.”
“I wonder how much of a psycho Frankie Chandler really is,” I said. “I sometimes think he may have been involuntarily turned by society and circumstances from an innocent kid into a coldblooded murderer.”
“Are you feeling sorry for him?”
“Yeah, maybe I am. He’s had nothing but bad breaks his whole young life.”
“But don’t forget, Danny, right now he is fucking scary – and very dangerous – no matter how, or why, he got that way.”
We met Edward and Agatha Weston late the following morning as scheduled. The Salvation Army pickup had not yet arrived, so we had time to talk uninterrupted. After identifying the group photo of the foursome we found in the apartment, Edward said, “My brother was a hard man.”
Agatha rolled her eyes and said, “No, Ed, he was a lot worse than that – he was a rotten, unforgiving bastard.”
Edward looked from the photo to his wife and nodded his head in affirmation. “Agatha’s right, but it pains me to admit it. He was my brother, you know.”