by Lisa Unger
“Just a second—” said Malone. “There.” He reached over and put the machine back to play. Lydia leaned in closer and saw the ghost of a movement, the edge of something that was just out of reach of the camera’s lens. Then the screen went black.
“Is there another entrance to that room?” asked Lydia.
“Not that we saw,” answered Piselli. “It’s just that one door. And the super says there’s no other way in.”
“How much of the room can you see on the tape?” asked Ford.
“I’d say about seventy-five percent. You can’t see under the camera and the far back of the room. And apparently there’s an area to the right of the camera that’s out of range.”
“So someone familiar with that could have come in the door and stayed to the right, out of range of the camera?” asked Lydia.
Piselli gave a nod and a shrug.
They rewound the tape and Lydia watched it again, leaning in close to the screen. The fluid nature of the movement and the faint pattern Lydia saw on second look made her think it was fabric.
“It’s a hem,” she said, putting her finger on the screen. Piselli rewound the tape again and they all leaned in. “It’s the hem of a dress. See … it’s a dark color with tiny hearts.”
“So why would someone be skulking around the laundry room at two-thirty in the morning? And why would they be purposely staying out of range of the camera?” asked Ford, thinking aloud.
“It would have to be someone pretty small to be able to stay out of sight,” said Malone.
“And how did the camera get turned off without our seeing who did it?” asked Piselli.
“So maybe it’s down here where we’ll find our missing murder weapon and Stratton’s ring … not to mention his finger,” said Ford.
“Well, we’ll find something down there,” said Lydia, getting up and moving toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“With a cure like you guys, who needs disease?” said Rain with a short disdainful laugh. “I thought you boys had an edge, were going to take care of the problem. Instead I have to save your sorry asses.”
“What was that back there?”
He didn’t answer, just kept moving on ahead of them. Rain was an older man with smooth chocolate skin and a full white beard. His liquid eyes were clear and sober, but his face was etched with the lines of struggle and pain. Without the robes, he was just a stooped old man who walked with a limp. Most people didn’t live to be his age in a place like this, and Jeffrey wondered what his story was but declined to ask. Ahead of them, he could see some kind of light; it looked like the glow from a street lamp shining through a grating. They couldn’t get there fast enough as far as he was concerned.
“Now he’s on the move and it will take time for us to locate him again,” Rain went on. “You boys have made a mess down here.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” said Dax testily. He’d just about had his fill of street people and their tirades.
“And I’m not going to,” answered Rain, stopping and turning to Dax with a frown and a pointing finger.
“How did he know we were after him?” Jeff cut in.
“Someone tipped him off. I can’t be sure who. But I’ll find out and I’ll deal with it, believe me.”
“What are you, like the Mayor of the Tunnels or something?” asked Dax with a smirk.
“Something like that. I don’t like your attitude, boy,” said Rain. If Bill Cosby were dirty, very crabby, and lived below the streets of New York City, he’d look like Rain.
“What happened to Violet?” asked Jeff, moving between Dax and Rain.
“I don’t know,” he answered, looking away from Dax, concern darkening his features. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and looked Jeff in the eye.
Then he turned, casting a warning glance in Dax’s direction, and started walking again. Soon they stood at the opening in the wall that would lead them out the way they had come in, and Jeff had never been so happy to see a subway track in his life.
“Remember your promise,” said Rain to Jeff, moving away from them.
“Wait a second. We didn’t get what we came for.”
“That’s not my problem,” he threw behind him as he continued on his way with a thug’s saunter.
“I think it is,” called Jeff. “All we have to do is tell the FBI that we know he’s down here somewhere and they’ll tear this place apart.”
Rain stopped in his tracks and Dax smiled. “Won’t be much of a mayor without your city, will you?” he said.
“What do you want from me?” he said, turning around. “Goddammit, I knew that one was going to be trouble the minute I heard about him.”
“Then why didn’t you take care of it yourself?” asked Jeff.
“Because that’s the code down here, man. Everybody gets a chance to be a part of this community. Up there, they’re losers—drug addicts, prostitutes, criminals, nuts. They got nothing and no one to give them respect. Down here, there’s a place for everyone, as long as you obey the rules, don’t hurt nobody, and don’t ever talk to the police or anyone topside about what goes on down here.”
“This man is a murderer, Rain,” said Jeff. “He’s going to hurt more people. All we want is a line on him and we’ll take care of the rest. When you know where he is, let us know. That’s all we ask.”
“And you’re gonna take care of it? Like you did today?”
“You have a week,” said Dax. “If we don’t hear from you, we come down here with the Feds and you can kiss your little kingdom good-bye. You’ll be in a shelter or a nuthouse or wherever it is that you belong.”
Jeff shot Dax a look that was lost on him in the darkness and probably would have been anyway. They had different ways of dealing with people. Jeff believed that all people, regardless of their circumstances, deserved to be treated with respect until they proved themselves unworthy. Dax felt exactly the opposite. Dax was fiercely loyal to a few people and everyone else could just go to hell as far as he was concerned.
“Look,” said Jeff, hoping to soften the blow of Dax’s words—but Rain was walking away. “Rain, let’s talk about this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Dax, moving through the opening and stepping onto the comparatively bright track on the other side. “He’ll get in touch with us.”
“Fuck,” said Jeff, watching the only lead he had on Jed McIntyre disappear into the darkness of the tunnels.
“Trust me, mate,” said Dax with the winning smile that always made Jeff forget what an asshole and a wild card he could be. “I know these people. If he’d promised to get in touch with us, then I’d be worried. Let’s get topside so we can call Lydia. She’s going to kick your ass back fifty feet underground. And I want to be there to see it.”
chapter eleven
There were few things Lydia hated more than arguing in front of other people. She hated the feel of eyes on her at the best of times but least of all when she was angry and vulnerable. People were judgmental and she didn’t want the baggage of someone else’s energy in her personal life. It was for this reason and this reason alone that she kept her voice light and measured as she spoke to Jeffrey on her cell phone. Her whole body had felt electrified with relief when she’d seen his number on her caller ID. When the relief drained her, anger and dread filled her back up.
“Hi,” she’d answered. She was conscious of Ford sitting next to her and Detectives Piselli and Malone riding in the backseat. In the dark silence of the car all ears were on her.
“Hey, how’s it going?” he said, voice tentative, guilty. The line crackled and he sounded like he was on the moon. And he might as well be, for as close as she felt to him right now.
“Fine. What’s happening with you?” Her voice lilted, but the words felt like rocks in her throat.
“Not much,” he lied. “Are you with Ford?”
“Yeah. Are you with Dax?”
“Yeah. Can we meet up with you guys?”
; “Sure. We’re heading over to the Ross building. We saw something on a surveillance tape and we’re going to check it out. Meet us in the laundry room.”
“The laundry room?”
She tried a joke, but it came out sounding harsh and angry. “Is there an echo in here?” She never was any good at hiding her emotions.
“You’re pissed,” he said.
“Why would I be?” Her voice sounded crisp and sarcastic even to her own ears, and she saw Ford turn to look at her out of the corner of her eye.
“We have a lot to talk about later.”
She let his words hang in the air, tried to tell from his tone how things had gone.
“Is it settled?” she asked finally. There was a pause during which the specter of hope that had been lurking beneath the negative emotions swirling inside her faded and was lost.
“No. It’s not.”
“I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Lydia—”
But she hung up. She wasn’t really angry at Jeffrey. She wasn’t really angry. She was scared and tired. But anger was always easier to deal with because anger was power. Anger made you do something, made you act. Anger made you strong. Fear made you weak, made you cower, made you a victim. And that was just not acceptable to Lydia. It just wasn’t an option at all.
“Everything all right?” Ford asked as if he were sticking his hand into the lion’s cage at the Bronx Zoo.
She didn’t even know how to answer that question anymore. So she just nodded and looked out the window as they pulled up to the building on Park Avenue.
“Hardly anybody ever uses this laundry room, you know,” said the doorman as he took them down in the service elevator. His Yonkers accent was thick and he seemed out of place in the maroon tails with gold piping on the cuffs and collar that were the uniform for the building. It was probably the only suit he owned and even this was too short in the legs and wrinkled. He was affable and a little on the goofy side and his name was Anthony Donofrio.
“These people got the cash, you know,” he said, quickly rubbing the fingers on his right hand together. He smiled, revealing crooked, yellowing teeth. “Most of them have washers and dryers in their apartments. Some of the old-timers, too cheap to buy their own, still come down here. But mostly the maids and nannies, if they have more than one load to do, they run down here to save time. I got the monitor in the office behind the front desk and I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I seen the actual tenant down there. But I work the night shift, mostly.”
Ford could tell that Anthony was enjoying this a little bit. Ever since those cop shows had started to make it big on prime-time television, people were a lot more cooperative. They felt like they were part of something when the police came to ask questions unless, of course, they had something to hide. Anthony Donofrio impressed Ford as the kind of guy who visited his mother, had a hard time with the ladies, and still hung out with the same guys he went to grade school with. If he had something to hide, maybe it was that he jerked off every night with a copy of Hustler. And who didn’t?
“So how did the camera get turned off that night, Anthony?” asked Ford, taking out his notepad.
“I don’t know,” he said with an exaggerated shrug. His eyes were wide and innocent, but Ford saw it. A quick shift of the pupils. “I never noticed it go off. Only when you guys looked at the tape did they find that it had been turned off and back on.”
Ford didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked down at his pad as if deep in thought. He let the silence grow thick and uncomfortable between them.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Anthony said again, this time with a nervous chuckle. Ford cocked his head to one side and gave Anthony a thoughtful frown. Suddenly he sensed Anthony wasn’t enjoying himself as much anymore.
“That’s the only place where the camera could be turned off, from behind your desk?”
Again the shift, and an uncomfortable stepping from side to side.
“Uh, yeah, behind the front desk.”
“Did you leave your post at any time? To take a leak or take a smoke—what ever?”
Anthony looked down at his feet and was quiet for a minute.
“Yeah, maybe,” Anthony said. “Yeah.”
“What was it?”
“A leak, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Hey,” he said, moving in close to Ford and giving a quick look around him. “I’m not supposed to take breaks. I could lose my job.”
“Anthony,” said Ford. “You’re not straight with me and your job’s gonna be the least of your worries, man.”
Anthony let out a long slow exhale and shook his head. “Every so often,” he said, with his eyes down, “I’d, you know, step outside for a smoke.”
“So the equipment was left unattended a number of times throughout the night. Someone could have walked in, turned it off, and turned it back on while you were outside?”
“I guess. Yeah, its possible.”
Ford gave a hard look at Anthony. Maybe he had more to hide than that Hustler after all. “What else, Anthony? If there’s something you’re holding back, now’s the time to let it out.”
“No, that’s it. I swear,” he said, casting an earnest look at Ford.
Ford nodded but gave Anthony eyes that said he wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that they were finished talking.
“Listen,” Anthony said, lowering his voice. “I really need this job.”
“You probably should have thought about that before, huh, Anthony?”
• • •
The laundry room looked like every other laundry room Ford had ever seen—fluorescent lights, cinderblock walls painted a light gray, Formica floors. The scent of detergent and that unmistakable smell that comes from dryer vents was heavy in the air. Only one dryer rumbled and through the glass Ford could see rose-colored sheets and blue and white towels tumbling. A bulletin board held building announcements, a page printed from a computer printer offering babysitting services and some inspection documents. The room looked clean, innocuous. That would change. He looked at his watch; forensics should be joining them any moment.
“Nobody touch anything,” he reminded Lydia and the other detectives.
“It’s a laundry room, Ford. This place will be covered with prints. You gonna have everyone authorized to use this room fingerprinted so that we can compare?” asked Piselli.
“Hey, you volunteering to head that up?” said Ford with a scowl. Piselli rolled his eyes.
“Fucking rookies been on the job less than five years and they think they know everything. It’s not out of the question. Not easy, but not out of the question.”
Lydia looked around the room. It felt like a dead end; there was nothing to see but washers and dryers, bland walls, white floors.
“How often is this room cleaned?” she asked.
“Maintenance comes in here once a week to dust and mop the floors,” Anthony answered, pleased to be helpful.
“Have they been here since Richard Stratton was murdered?”
“No, they come on Fridays—day after tomorrow.”
Lydia walked along the edge of the dryers, tracing the path that the person caught in the video camera must have taken. She walked to the end of the row where there was a small space between the last dryer and the wall. Here she dropped to the floor and peered under the dryer.
Ford walked over to her. “What do you see?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, standing up and wiping the dust from her nose. “We need to move the dryer.” Piselli and Malone removed surgical gloves from their pockets and easily slid the dryer forward. The four of them crowded in to peer behind the dryer.
“Well, will you look at that,” said Malone.
“What’s going on?” asked Jeff as he and Dax walked into the room.
“Christ, you two smell like a couple of sewer rats,” said Ford when they got closer.
“It’s a trapdoor,” said Lydia, not looking up a
t Dax and Jeff. She was too fascinated by their find. And besides, she hated both of them at the moment.
“Yeah. But leading where?” asked Piselli as if he didn’t really want to know.
It was a wooden door with a wrought-iron ring for a handle. It appeared to have been nailed and painted shut at some point, the Formica laid over it. But the flooring had been cut away, the nails had been pried out, and the paint chipped through around the edges. Ford moved in and lifted the lid. A ladder led down into a pitch-black hole. A foul dank odor of mold and rot wafted from the darkness. It was a smell that Dax and Jeff recognized all too well.
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” said Dax in a bad impression of Al Pacino. Nobody laughed.
chapter twelve
It’s the dark spaces, the secret passageways, the hidden doorways that the demons use to enter your life and rip it to pieces. It’s where the light doesn’t shine that they dwell and breed like bacteria in a warm, moist wound. The hole in the floor they’d discovered opened a similar blackness within Lydia. Someone had crept through this trapdoor in the floor to visit death on Richard Stratton and horror onto Julian Ross. Julian’s bogeyman, her worst nightmare, was alive and well and moving with stealth beneath the city streets. So was Lydia’s. She was more kindred to Julian than she had imagined and wondered how far she was from sharing Julian’s fate.
When Lydia had faced Jed McIntyre in the flesh, she felt sure that she would burst into flames. He had always been a ghost in her life, shadowing any peaceful moments, growing large in times of pain and sadness, and, in many ways, the reason behind most of her drive. If he hadn’t murdered her mother, she wasn’t sure she’d even be the person she was today. Certainly the pain that had always impelled her to understand the minds of madmen—her hopeless and relentless effort to pick up the pieces they left behind them, sort them, name them, make them understandable—had been visited upon her by Jed McIntyre. But actually, he had become almost theoretical. He was the face of fear, of pain, evil, grief. He was every murderer, every sin. And in being all these things he had become over the years a concept rather than a man. To see him real and alive—breathing, flesh and blood—had felt to Lydia like the animation of her darkest, most secret inner fears. To imagine him lurking, shadowing the edges of her life like a wraith, was too much for her mind to absorb. A sad numbness had wrapped itself around her. And every day he was at large, it pulled itself tighter and she was starting to suffocate, finding it hard to draw a breath.