by Lisa Unger
“What I’m not up to is lying around thinking about how fucked up my life is right now,” she said, rolling her head over to meet his gaze and placing a hand on her stomach. He gave her a sad smile and a nod.
“I hear you,” he said. “Still, you look like you belong on a gurney.”
An ambulance wailed past them as though to make a point, its red and white lights flashing, siren screaming.
“She said something else, too,” said Lydia, looking after the ambulance, which had stopped because the traffic was slow to give way. The wailing continued, seemed to get louder, and was joined by a cacophony of honking horns.
“What’s that?”
“She calls Eleanor ‘The queen’ … ‘the Queen of the Damned.’ ”
“The mother-daughter relationship is very complicated,” said Ford, pulling a bad Austrian accent.
“Eleanor Ross has done a lot of lying since she hired Jeffrey and me,” Lydia continued, as if thinking aloud. “Really … she’s done little else. She never told us about her murder trial or her missing son until confronted.”
“Sins of omission.…”
“And, if you think about it, she has a lot to gain. If Julian is declared incompetent, she’s most likely to become Lola and Nathaniel’s guardian.”
“So you think it’s about the kids.”
“They’ll be worth quite a bit. Daddy’s dead; Mommy’s in the nuthouse. If Julian doesn’t recover, the family estate will likely go into trust for them. There will need to be an executor.”
“Grandma.”
Lydia shrugged. It was a theory she was trying on, something she and Jeffrey had begun to discuss during their last visit to Haunted. It didn’t fit quite right, but it was something. She looked at her Movado watch.
“Maybe it’s too late to head to Haunted?”
He shrugged. He was jonesing to head up there, find Annabelle Hodge, get her to answer a few questions. But he supposed it could wait until the morning. He’d be better off heading up there with Piselli or one of the other detectives on his team, rather than cowboy it, with Lydia Strong riding shotgun. If things got out of hand, there’d be hell to pay.
“What do you have in mind?” he asked.
“Let’s see if we can’t get an audience with the queen.”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve got some questions for the court jester as well.”
Anthony Donofrio didn’t look happy to see Ford as he and Lydia walked through the front door of the Park Avenue apartment building. In fact, he looked downright pale. Apparently his fascination with the specifics of police work had come to an end.
In spite of Ford’s vigorous objections, Eleanor and the twins had been allowed to move back into the duplex the day before yesterday. Money talks, apparently loudly enough that the order had been handed down directly from the chief of police. He had managed to keep sealed the bedroom where Stratton had been killed. Nobody seemed to think it was at all strange that Eleanor would feel comfortable moving the twins back into the apartment where their father had been brutally murdered.
“It’s late, Detective. They’re probably asleep,” explained Anthony when no one answered his call, pulling himself up and squaring off his shoulders as if preparing himself for a fight.
Ford looked at him and noticed a light sheen of perspiration on his upper lip.
“That’s okay, Anthony. I actually have a few questions for you, too,” said Ford. “Did you know Geneva Stout?”
“Um, the name sounds vaguely fa-fa-familiar,” he answered. He’d developed a stutter.
“The nanny for the Stratton-Ross children,” said Ford calmly, looking around the foyer.
“Oh … yeah. I seen her around.”
“You never spoke to her? She’s a pretty girl,” Ford said, turning his eyes on Anthony with a knowing smile. “I would’ve thought a stud like you would be putting the moves on.”
“Uh, n-no. It wasn’t like that.”
“So you never talked to her? Never saw her outside the building?”
“No,” he said with a shrug. The guy was lying, his eyes dancing all over the place, the sudden stutter. Ford decided to let him dangle a little.
“Sure about that, Anthony?”
“I’m sure,” he said, his face coloring now.
“ ’Cause it wouldn’t be a good idea to lie to me.”
“I w-w-wouldn’t,” he said emphatically. “Let me try that buzzer for you again.”
When there was still no answer, Ford and Lydia advanced toward the elevator.
“I can’t let you go up there unannounced,” said Anthony, a lilt of panic making his voice sound like a teenager’s.
“Anthony,” said Ford as they climbed into the elevator. “Whaddaya gonna do? Call the cops?”
The doors closed and Lydia and Ford were alone.
“What the hell was the matter with that guy?” asked Lydia as the elevator climbed slowly toward the top floor.
“I’ve been thinking about how the camera got turned off. The children’s psychologist that I used to interview Lola and Nathaniel said that someone was exerting a lot of power over the kids, someone intimate.”
“Yeah?”
“And that she couldn’t see Nathaniel acting without Lola, or without someone giving orders.”
“Okay …” she said, not quite sure where he was going.
“So, if Lola was down in the basement and Nathaniel was charged with turning off the camera and then turning it back on when she was done, something or someone had to distract Anthony long enough for him to do that. He couldn’t have snuck into the office alone.”
“And, to a loser like Anthony Donofrio, nothing is quite as distracting as a pretty girl?”
“Exactly. And a nanny would certainly exert plenty of power over the children.”
“Interesting,” said Lydia as they stepped off onto the floor. They walked down the hallway and paused at double doors to the duplex. The door stood ajar. Both Ford and Lydia drew their weapons. For once, Lydia was armed. Every other time she’d needed a gun in the last two months, it had been in her bag, in her car, somewhere out of reach. With the threat of Jed McIntyre on the loose, she had grown more cautious.
“Ms. Ross?” called Ford, looking at Lydia’s Glock with disapproval. “Put that thing away, Lydia. You fire a round in this apartment and I’ve got serious trouble. I shouldn’t even allow you to be here.”
“I’m not even with you,” she said. “I came here on my own with a separate agenda.”
“Put it away,” he said again, pushing the door open, moving in front of Lydia. Naturally, Lydia ignored him.
“Ms. Ross,” he called again, this time louder.
They walked into the apartment, which was dark except for the embers of a fire still glowing in the fireplace of the drawing room to the right of the entryway. Lydia waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, keeping close to Ford. They both noticed at the same time that a form sat stiff and motionless in the overstuffed chair near the fire. Lydia felt her heart start to do the rumba and her fingers tingled with adrenaline.
“Ms. Ross?” Ford said again, this time his voice a question. There was no movement, no response from the dark figure. Ford felt along the wall for a light switch and finally found one.
She sat upright and regal, her head tilted slightly back, the expression on her face one of cool disdain, the corners of her mouth turned down. Her long, thin hands gripped the arms of the chair to which she was bound with rope. Tresses of long gray hair cascaded down over her shoulders. She looked beautiful, except for the dark red bullet hole precisely between her blue eyes.
“Shit,” said Lydia, all the answers she’d hoped to get from Eleanor disappearing up the chimney like the thin black smoke from the embers of the fire.
“Oh, God. Oh, Christ. I didn’t know. I s-s-swear to G-G-God,” cried Anthony Donofrio from behind them. He fell to his knees and started to weep.
Ford spun around to see Anthony in a crumpled mess o
n the floor, blubbering like a little girl. Ford’s stomach fell out. Oh, God, he thought, if Eleanor’s dead … where are the twins?
Lydia and Ford exchanged a glance, both of them of one mind, and together they ran through the living room. Ford pushed through the door and went down the long hallway that led to the children’s bedrooms. The rooms were across the hall from each other, adjoined by a bathroom. Ford handed Lydia a pair of surgical gloves and pulled on a pair himself. They split up. Ford went into Nathaniel’s room, characterized by a SpongeBob SquarePants motif. Lydia took Lola’s room, filled, it seemed, with every Barbie and Barbie accessory ever made. Lydia could hear the sounds of Ford ripping back the covers on the bed, pushing aside the clothes in the closet, as she did the same.
“They’re not here,” said Ford, breathless, walking into Lola’s room. He pulled out a cell phone and called in the Missing Children’ Unit, as well as backup from the homicide department. While he talked, he and Lydia searched the rest of the apartment. The space was filled with the sounds of Lydia and Ford calling for the twins and with Anthony wailing in the foyer the entire time, pausing only to puke his guts up on two separate occasions.
chapter twenty-eight
“Where are the kids, Anthony?” asked Ford, remembering the days when no one cared about police brutality.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
It seemed like a mantra he was using to calm himself. He’d said little else since Ford had grilled the truth out of him about the night Stratton was murdered. Apparently, while Richard Stratton was being disemboweled on the fourteenth floor, Anthony was getting the blow job of his life from the nanny formerly known as Geneva Stout. Anthony didn’t know he was being duped, or so he claimed tearfully. He just thought Geneva liked him. He still didn’t know how the camera got turned off, but Ford imagined that little Nathaniel snuck in while the couple were otherwise engaged and did the deed. He’d ask Nathaniel himself. But the twins were gone.
“Did it occur to you after the murder that maybe Geneva Stout had just been trying to distract you?” Ford had asked as he sat across from Anthony at the kitchen table.
Anthony shrugged, his face a mask of misery, his eyes downcast. “Not really,” he said sheepishly.
The guy was just too pathetic, too stupid. It had probably seemed just like the plot of every porn movie Anthony had ever seen. Doorman, just minding his own business, sexy nanny from upstairs comes to visit just dying to suck his dick. Anthony probably thought it happened all the time … to other guys.
“Jesus,” said Ford now, shaking his head.
“Who came into this building tonight, Anthony. You’re the fucking doorman. Who. Did. You. Let. In?”
“No one. I swear to God. No one was here.”
“Oh, someone was here.”
“Christ,” Anthony sighed, lifting his eyes toward heaven. Ford thought he might actually be praying.
“So then, maybe you want me to conclude that you came up here, killed Eleanor Ross, and hid the twins, or handed them off to someone else, or maybe even killed them.”
“Nonononono,” he wailed. “God, no way. No fucking way.”
“Then what kind of conclusion do you want me to draw?”
“I don’t know.” Back to his mantra. Ford sighed.
“Look, you’re gonna ride down to Midtown North with one of the uniforms. We need to talk more and I don’t have time right now.”
“I told you everything I know,” said Anthony, panicked.
“I don’t think so,” answered Ford. After a few hours to himself in an interrogation room, thinking things over, the thoughts and doubts would start turning like debris in the winds of a tornado: How did I get here … how did this happen … that bitch, I should’ve known she was up to something. People get talkative after a few hours in their own head.
“I want a lawyer,” he said suddenly, looking up at Ford and crossing his arms across his chest.
“You’re not under arrest,” said Ford calmly.
“Then I don’t have to go anywhere with you. I know my rights.”
Ford brought his fist down hard on the kitchen table that stood between them. Anthony jumped and looked at him with fear and an uncertain anger in his eyes.
“Do not fuck with me, Anthony,” said Ford, getting right in the kid’s face and lowering his voice to a quiet menace. “You think you know how things go because you watch NYPD Blue? You have impeded the progress of my investigation by not being forthcoming with what you know. Cooperate with me, Anthony, and you could be home by midnight. Otherwise, man, I’ll arrest you right now and you’ll need a fucking lawyer. Do we understand each other?”
Anthony nodded and lowered his head. Ford thought the guy was going to start to bawl right there. “Good,” he answered, clapping Anthony on the shoulder. “Stay here until I send someone to take you to the precinct.”
Ford left him in the kitchen and walked out back toward the living room, where the crime scene technicians were starting to arrive. Detectives Piselli and Malone stood with their arms crossed by the door; they looked lost, like they didn’t know what to do with their hands. He was reminded that they were young, new to the detective squad. Though they’d each been on the job nearly five years, they’d had mostly patrol, some “buy-and-bust.” The crime scene was still new to them in this capacity.
“How’s it going? Holding up the wall like that?” he said.
They looked embarrassed, both pushing themselves forward and glancing at him expectantly, waiting for orders. He shook his head.
“Jesus, start looking around. You know … for clues? Something that might help you figure out what went on here?”
Peter Rawls, the head of the Missing Children’s Unit, had already arrived with his team and they seemed to be setting up shop in the room opposite from where Eleanor was found. He was grim-faced and barking orders. At well over six-foot-four with Popeye arms and a chest like a side of beef, no one argued with him.
“I’m trying not to trample on your scene McKirdy,” he said with an apologetic nod. “But we got kids missing. Time is short.”
Ford looked around him. It was pandemonium; even a first-year public defender would have a field day with evidence gathered in this circus.
“We’ll work together. Find those babies, get the shooter.” Ford’s voice sounded sure even though he wasn’t. Rawls nodded.
Ford briefed Rawls quickly on the family history and the homicide case he was working. Rawls listened with his eyes down and his arms crossed, nodding as Ford ticked off the facts as they stood so far.
“What a mess,” Rawls said when Ford was done. Ford just nodded. It was a mess, all right.
“I need some time with that doorman when you’re done with him,” said Rawls.
“I am done for now. Take all the time you want with him and then have him sent to my precinct with a uniform. I’m going to take another go at him in less comfortable accommodations.”
“I’ll tell you what I get.”
“I’ll do the same.”
They swapped cell numbers and Rawls stalked off, his face drawn and determined. Ford thought he looked like a man who didn’t accept failure and he hoped that was good news for Lola and Nathaniel. Poor kids. He said a silent prayer for them, though he was not a religious man.
“Hey,” Ford said, walking toward Piselli. “Where’s Lydia Strong?”
“She left. She wasn’t looking well. Said she needed to get home.”
They walked off and Ford looked toward the door. “Crap,” he whispered to himself. Well, he thought, she’s a tough girl, with a big gun. She can take care of herself. Ford turned then to Eleanor Ross, whose corpse he thought seemed only slightly more cold and stiff than she had been in life.
She wasn’t being stubborn or reckless or any of the things she knew she’d be accused of once Jeffrey realized she’d left Ford McKirdy and headed home on her own. In fact, it was just the opposite. If she’d stayed at the scene or headed up to Haunted
, she’d be hurting herself. She knew that. Her heart and mind had never felt more unwelcome in her body. What she wanted had been overridden unequivocally by pain and fatigue. Dax was wrong and she was stupid to have listened to him; she needed time to recover … mentally, physically, and emotionally. For once, she was going to do what was best for her, not what was best for her work. It was a lesson she had learned the hard way.
When the homicide guys arrived and then the Missing Children’s Unit showed up, she had felt as helpless, as useless there as she had been. Standing in the foyer looking at Eleanor’s corpse, Lydia had thought of her mother. Marion would have known which saint to pray to, which saint was charged with looking after children. Lydia couldn’t remember, so she just prayed to her mother. Prayed that Lola and Nathaniel were safe. That Nathaniel had his bunny. When her prayer was done, she knew that there was little else she could do in the state she was in, weak and ill, barely able to hold herself tall.
The energy of the loft embraced her as she stepped off the elevator and reset the alarm system. Home, she thought. And the thought sent waves of relief through her body. It was nice to be alone, too, without the watchful eyes of Dax or Jeffrey smothering her. She shed her coat and put a kettle on the stove. She could smell the warm scent of lavender mingling with the aroma of the Murphy’s Oil Soap that Zel, their cleaning lady, used to wash the floors. She sat at the kitchen table and looked out at the city. The world was different to her than it had been before the miscarriage. Even the cityscape seemed to have changed.
The skyline had always fascinated her, each light representing a life lived, each window a mystery waiting to be solved. She was forever wondering who was doing what to whom, who within those lighted windows was laughing, crying, making love, mourning, celebrating. It was this curiosity that made her good at her work … actually, it was this curiosity that made her indivisible from her work. She had realized, during the days she’d spent in a drug-induced haze, that there was no separation between what she did and who she was. Was this a bad thing? she wondered.