He filed Minnesota away in his head. Long way from home.
“You, uh, do something different?” he said, waving his fingers around his own head but looking into her eyes. She gave him the quizzical look again.
“No. Oh, the ponytail?” she said, pulling the blonde whip of hair over her shoulder. “You like it?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he said. “Shows off the new tan.”
She smiled again and when someone motioned to her from down the bar she kind of bounced away, pleased.
He drank his beer, played it cool. An occasional customer would nod at him in recognition and he would nod back, but always turn away. He was only here to get to know one person. He wasn’t here to make friends. He looked straight ahead, used the mirrors to watch the rest of the room. The storyteller down the bar had taken over, rooster in the house, he thought. The two women in the group were already a drink over their limit and he was working to impress them. That’s when the brothers arrived.
He heard the motorcycle come rapping up outside, the driver giving the throttle an extra twist of rpm’s to announce himself. The first one in entered with a grin, hair blown back, T-shirt and jeans, neither of them black. He worked his way past the group at the middle of the bar and took the stool next to the quiet man. The second one entered with an amphetamine smile. He went straight to the rail.
“Hey, little blondie, come on down here with a bottle of Jack,” he said, loud enough to make sure everyone noticed.
Marci took a shot glass with her. The head of the middle group turned too quickly and took in the character: Big guy, hair ruffled up from the wind, wearing the requisite black vest over black T- shirt. No jewelry but the poorly done, single-color prison tattoo was a dead giveaway to the quiet man, but he sipped his beer, watched the smaller, calmer brother next to him in the mirror and listened.
The group turned back to their conversation while the speedballer downed two shots of Jack Daniel’s and pointed Marci down to where his brother was putting down the money. He then insinuated himself on the gathering in between.
“Well ain’t this a boring party,” he squawked and draped a meaty arm over one of the women’s shoulders.
“Christ, this isn’t gonna last long,” said the brother, maybe to himself, maybe to the quiet man who was looking ahead into the mirror. The brother went to put money into the juke and the volume of some overplayed rock song obscured the conversation going on down in the group. The quiet man snuck a look at Marci, who caught his eye and rolled her own. When the music stopped the argument seemed to ratchet up, like it was trying to fill the void. Suddenly the speeder and the rooster were facing off.
“You’re a fucking liar, man. You didn’t do no three years in fucking Starke,” the big brother was yapping.
The rooster had turned but was leaning back, both elbows still against the bar.
“I’ve been inside,” he said. “And I don’t give a shit if you don’t believe it.”
“And I’m calling you a lyin’ bitch,” said the speeder, lowering his voice and sneering the words. “I’m out three months and the only way you was inside was as somebody’s bitch.”
The quiet man was watching the speeder in the back mirror now, waiting to see if a blade was going to come out of a back pocket. Marci stepped up on a beer case behind the bar and said: “Come on guys, settle down, all right. Settle down, we’ll have one on the house.”
The rooster hadn’t moved his elbows. Dumb ass, thought the quiet man.
“See!” yelped the speeder. “Proof’s right there. Nobody inside gets called somebody’s bitch and then just stands there.”
The guy strutted away from the group, point made, and came over to his brother, who was keeping his head low. “Shit, Bobby. Thought that bitch was gonna bend over for me right there,” Speeder said, sniggering and taking one of his brother’s shots off the bar.
The quiet man could see him in the mirror and tell he was still excited by his low-life conquest. His shoulders twitching, eyes jumping.
“So, who we got here, brother Bob? This a friend of yours?”
“Yeah, he’s a old friend. Drinkin’ buddy, right?”
The brother’s voice was nervous. He’d probably spent his whole life trying to avoid getting sucked into his shit-head sibling’s trouble.
“Well, hell, drinkin’ buddy. How bout linin’ up some drinks, then?” the speeder said, leaning into the quiet man and putting a pale forearm on his shoulder.
The stench of dried sweat came off him, mixed with the sweet sting of gasoline and exhaust. When the speeder removed his arm to turn and ogle and insult another woman passing through the bar the quiet man caught Marci’s eye and he ordered a single shot of Maker’s Mark. When she set it in front of him, he reached into his pocket as if to pay but brought out his police badge folder instead. He turned the shield face up and put it next to the shot, the silver of the official department seal glinting in the overhead lights.
Brother Bobby saw it first and looked at the side of the quiet man’s face. The quiet man was still staring straight ahead and in a low voice he said: “Tell your fucking convict brother if he touches me again he’s going back in the slam and the trip won’t be pretty.”
Bobby found the quiet man’s eyes in the mirror and got up from his stool.
“Come on, Davey. Let’s get outta here, man. This place is a dive,” he said to the speeder, putting his body in between his brother and the bar and moving him toward the door.
“Come on. This is dead, man. We’ll go down to the Riptide and score some shit and some real women who want to party.”
Bobby was working him fast, not giving his brother a chance to object or latch on to anything else to spit his bile on. When the rip of the motorcycle engine sounded and the screech of tire on asphalt faded, the entire bar seemed to exhale.
When Marci turned back to the quiet man the badge was gone and he was sipping his whiskey. She took the bottle off the back counter and said: “This one’s on the house.”
He finished the shot and set it down and she poured.
“Thanks,” he said. “That’s sweet of you.”
She had that quizzical look on her face.
“You’re a cop?” she said softly.
“Shhh,” he answered, putting a finger to his lips.
She smiled and turned away, tossing that tail of golden curls over her shoulder. He sipped the new whiskey and smiled to himself and whispered: “Got her.”
CHAPTER 9
I was on the beach with a borrowed straw hat on my head and sitting under a wide umbrella. The breeze had gone flat and the ocean surface was calm and rolling like the slow swelling hide of some big sleeping animal.
I’d brought two sand chairs down after calling Richards and arranging to meet her here. My skull was still throbbing. I’d washed the blood out of my hair in the shower and poured peroxide on the wound last night. My attempt at a bandage came off during a twisting, turning sleep so I elected to leave it open to the sea air. A sure cure for open cuts, according to all those grandmothers who never lived near the ocean.
I was reading more of Adams’s years in France when I heard her sharp whistle. I turned and Richards was up on the bulkhead, two fingers pronged into her mouth, the other hand shading her eyes against the morning sun. She waved me up but I shook my head and waved her down. Then I watched all her body language of frustration as she took off her business pumps and made her way down the wooden stairs in her dark slacks. She’d be pissed. But I never liked being called to someone’s side like a dog to its master. She knew that, didn’t she?
“Good morning,” I said. “Too nice out here to resist. Here, I brought you down a chair.”
If she was angry, she swallowed it and sat down in the low chair in the shade, taking obvious care to brush away any sand.
“How’s the head?”
“Only hurts when I laugh.” I tapped the straw hat and smiled.
“Well. Your carjackers aren’t laughi
ng. Sergeant Rhodes tells me one guy had to have his jaw wired and the other has four broken ribs.”
There was no question in the statement. So I didn’t reply.
“He says he’s doubtful that you would be able to cause such damage alone, despite your extensive law enforcement background.”
It still wasn’t a question.
“Neither one of these gentlemen wanted to bring charges against you and refused to give statements. I told Rhodes that you’d probably do the same.”
She was quiet and might have been listening to the brush of water on sand but I doubted it.
“I already gave him a statement,” I said.
“Right. That you surprised them while they were breaking into your truck and they attacked you. You alone.”
This time she waited me out. I knew what she wanted.
“I talked with O’Shea in Archie’s,” I said.
“And?”
“He was hard to read. It’s been a while,” I said, avoiding her eyes. “He admits he hops a lot of local bars. He admits he knew Amy Strausshiem. He went out with her. And he has no idea where she is.”
“He brought it up?”
“Sherry, he saw me coming a mile away,” I said. “Just like he made you.”
She looked, out at the water, seeing some vision stuck in her head, thinking.
“I know you must have interviewed other bartenders, managers? Did they give you anything on O’Shea? Or anybody else you looked at?” I said
“Christ, Max. As soon as you put the idea of a serial abductor in their heads they start thinking gargoyle. Who’s the ugliest, creepiest guy in the room,” she said. “This generation doesn’t even know who Ted Bundy was.”
But they do know about the Gainesville Killer who slaughtered three University of Florida coeds and took out a boyfriend in the process. Give them some credit, I thought, but kept my mouth shut.
“The guy that looks like Freddie Kruger isn’t going to get anywhere close to these women,” she said.
I’d worked with detectives who focused on their convictions before, refused to back up and look wide.
“Look,” I said. “O’Shea said he dated lots of women. You talk to any of them?”
“A few.”
“He scare them?”
“No. They went out with him, had a good time on a date or two. Some he stayed friends with. Some he never called back.”
I concentrated on not even moving my chin. She was watching for “I told you so.”
“Maybe they weren’t what he was after,” she finally said.
“The missing girls have anything else in common?” I said. “Physically? Emotionally? Were they addicts?”
“No, goddammit! They were smart, lonely women who didn’t have close families and were bartenders, Max.”
I shut up and let her fume. She’d probably done this same dance with her supervisors half a dozen times. I could tell she was out there on her own on this one, obsessed. Maybe too much.
“The guy takes advantage of that loneliness, Max. The woman behind the bar is the one who runs the room and all the men who want a drink and a peek at her ass,” she said and I was getting uncomfortable with the way she was staring out at the sea. “I see him as a guy who doesn’t act like the others. He’s smart. It’s like a challenge to him. He’s nonthreatening, likable even. He brings their guard down somehow. Just like O’Shea.”
“And then what?” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“Kills them for the thrill and disposes of their bodies without a trace? That’s kind of Jekyll and Hyde,” I said.
“Are you denying that O’Shea is a violent man, Max?” she said. “You saw him. You saw him boot stomp that guy last night. That was the two of you in the street, wasn’t it?”
I didn’t answer.
“You wouldn’t cripple a man like that, Max.”
“All right,” I finally said, turning my face to the water. “The guy’s got issues.”
I knew it was a bad choice of words when I heard it come out of my mouth.
“Issues? He’s got issues?” She stood up. “What? Are you defending him now? You guys have a few beers, relive old times and then go out and kick some ass together and become brothers in arms all of a sudden?”
I stayed in my chair, knew I hadn’t played it well.
“He knows you’re after him, Sherry,” I said quietly.
“I am after him, Freeman. And whether you help or not, I’ll still be after him.”
It is hard to storm away from someone in soft sand. But Richards was a woman with talent and she did it effectively.
I stayed on the beach for an hour after she left, watching people walk the water’s edge. The old shell hunter staring down into the sand who made a pouch for her collection in the folds of her long dress. The jogger with curls of gray hair on his chest and headphones clipped over his ears and his mouth moving to a song only he could hear. A young woman walking alone, her narrow shoulders down and her sunglasses pointed out at middle distance, not in a hurry, not with a purpose, her lips in a tight seam. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
I could sit here and let the blue drain out of the sky and the water. I could let Sherry Richards chase her obsession alone. I could let a man who had once saved me from a bullet twist in the wind. I could let the unknown fates of a number of innocent women remain just that, unknown. I could just listen, “no different than anybody else had done,” Richards had said. Even though I couldn’t change the world, “it’s worth it to k-keep trying,” Billy had said. But all the roads in this case led back to Philadelphia, a place I had run from long ago.
I sat and listened to the surf whisper and watched the light go out of the sky until the horizon disappeared. Then I got up and went into the bungalow and made some long-distance calls to voices I had not heard in years.
CHAPTER 10
I changed my plans the minute I walked out of the terminal of the Philadelphia International Airport. I’d have to stop somewhere to buy a coat and at least another pair of socks. I was freezing my ass.
The sky was solid gray and sat low over the city like a dirty tin bowl and I had to search to find the wiper knob on the rental car to clear the cold drizzle off the windshield. I got on Penrose Avenue and coming over the George Platt Bridge I could both see and smell the smoke and steam coming up out of the refineries below. I tuned the radio to KYW and listened to that familiar sound of a newswire machine chinking in the background and the patter of a deep-voiced announcer accompanying working folks through their day. I had spent my entire life in an intimate dance with this place. I should not have been surprised by the way I remembered the steps, both the easy ones and the moves that were ankle breakers, but I was.
I turned up Broad Street and saw both the day Tug McGraw led a World Series parade and the night I killed a maniac in an abandoned subway tunnel just below. Farther north I passed South Philly High and in my head found the smell of fresh-cut grass on the football field and three blocks later the odor of chemotherapy drugs dripping into my mother’s veins at St. Agnes Medical Center.
A horn blasted behind me and a taxi driver was tossing his hand up at the now green light. I ignored my instinct to flip him off and when I heard an advertisement for a coat sale at Krass Brothers I turned east and moved on into the old neighborhood. The years in Florida had thinned my blood if not my memories. February in Fort Lauderdale is eighty degrees and sun. I needed to get warm and I had work to do.
Before I’d left Florida I told Billy about my confrontation with Bat Man and his unfortunate sidekick and the warning about union organizing and the cruise ship workers. He didn’t seem concerned. I told him I didn’t have their names yet and he said he’d get them off the public records on the police run sheets and incident reports and then check them out.
When I’d told him I was going to Philadelphia the thought had silenced him in a way I’d never seen before. Billy is never stunned, by calamity or foolishness or th
e myriad whims of humans. He stared into my eyes as if he were looking for some truth in them and then quickly gathered himself.
“I w-will stay in closer contact with Mr. Colon,” he said. “You will do, my friend, what you need to do.”
He then helped me find a series of electronic clippings from the Philadelphia Daily News and the Inquirer databases on the disappearance of Faith Hamlin and the subsequent investigation of five police officers. Colin’s name and suspicion were prominent, especially after the others confessed and supposedly came clean. I thought I recognized two of the other names but couldn’t be sure.
Billy also found the present name and address of O’Shea’s ex- wife, through the divorce records he got from an attorney contact in Philly. With a name and date of birth, we found her address in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, across the river from the city. Then I called my uncle Keith. He was still a sergeant in the Eighteenth District and he was understandably shocked to hear from me.
“Jesus Christ, Maxey. Is that you? Where the hell are you, boy? You in trouble? Christ, we thought you fell off the fuckin’ edge of the world. You coming to town? You’re coming over to the house then, right? No. No. Better you come over to McLaughlin’s first. You know your aunt. We’ll have a couple before that whole scene. You know she still goes to visit that church your mother turned to in those last years and she says feels her sister there. Damn, Maxey, it’s good to hear your voice, boy.”
I hadn’t managed ten words. When he finally took a breath I told him I was coming in on business. I was working for a lawyer in Florida and did he know anyone in internal affairs that might help me out?
“IAD and lawyers, Maxey?” I could see him shaking his old Scottish head. “The devil and his henchmen. But for you, son, we can find someone maybe we can trust.”
I had planned to go straight to my uncle’s but on South Street I stopped at Krass Brothers. When I stepped out into a puddle of slush in my Docksides, I made a mental note to hit the Army/Navy on Tasker for some boots. In the store the terse, clipped speech—“Whattaya, forty-two long?”—caught me off guard at first. South Florida isn’t exactly Southern, but I hadn’t realized how much of my own whipcrack city-speak I’d lost. When I told the guy, “Something warm but I’m not going skiing,” he tried to get me into a knee- length cashmere. When I told him I wasn’t working for the stock exchange he pushed a three-quarter leather on me.
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