He leaned back against the girl’s door, listening. He could hear nothing, but he was sure the little bitch was up to something.
The bells at St. Stanislaus were tolling half past four.
Of course. St. Stanislaus. Behind the old granite church, there was a small cemetery with a large oak tree, hidden behind high, graffiti-covered walls. He could prepare her in the warehouse and then, when it was dark enough and late enough, move her to the church in the handcart, under a tarp.
A couple of tarps, maybe, to stop any blood from soaking through. There would be risk, but at that time on that night, it would be fairly small.
He began to pull lengths of four-by-four together, laying out the main upright and the crossbeam strut for what would be the cross, checking the proportions.
It looked good. It had come together like something that was just meant to be.
He started up the generator and listened with satisfaction to the coughing roar as the nail gun compressor warmed up.
As Jun closed his front door, Jenner heard the muffled sound of his phone. Perhaps they’d found something . . . He hurriedly opened the door and picked up.
“Jenner, it’s Dan Israel. You were supposed to be here at Precious Blood
391
the courthouse by three p.m.! You’ve got about fifteen minutes to get here, otherwise the judge will leave, and you’ll be completely screwed.”
“Sorry, Dan. I don’t have time.”
“Make the time! You don’t show up, they’ll send out a bench warrant and bring you in in cuffs. It’s really important that you make it down here.”
“I understand. I just can’t make it.”
“Maybe I can get the judge to stay a little longer, until a little after five o’clock.”
“It’s not going to happen, Dan. I really appreciate your help, but I just can’t come down.”
As he hung up, he heard the buzzer for the building entrance. He grabbed his coat and nodded his head toward the elevator.
“We’ll get it on the way out.”
When the elevator doors opened, they found a tall black woman in a FedEx uniform in the lobby, running her finger down the occupant list, a small package in her hands.
“You know what apartment Dr. Jenner is?”
He identified himself and took the package, looking it over warily. She waited for him to sign, glancing around the small lobby, once again cluttered with flyers. She tutted and said, “You guys need a new super. I was so sad about Pete—
he was such a nice guy.” She took the receipt and went out onto Crosby.
He turned to Jun.
“It’s from Snowden, where Farrar comes from.”
Don Slater’s handwriting was surprisingly precise, with fat, looping o’s and a’s written with a fountain pen.
Dr. Jenner. Father Michael found these in drawer of writing desk after you left. Please forward to appropriate local agency when you have examined. Best, D.
Slater.
392
j o n at h a n h ay e s
It was a small sheaf of watercolors on the same heavy cream card stock he’d seen in Father Martin’s drawer. More views of Manhattan, the skyline rising across the water.
They were well done, the buildings readily recognizable, the outlines of the skyscrapers and bridges not weakened by the softness of the brushstrokes.
“They’re not bad,” murmured Jun.
Jenner was about to stick them in his mailbox when he stopped, looking at them more closely.
“Look at this . . . He’s not dating them, but you can see these have the World Trade Center, while these . . .” He fanned the cards out on the lobby table, separating several of them. “These don’t.”
Jun said, “So these ones are more recent?”
Jenner nodded, scanning them more carefully.
“Wait a second . . .” He pointed at one of them. “Look—
here you can see the Cortland Iron Building—you remember it? That huge fight between the preservationists and the developers, then six months ago, the developers demolished it during the night?”
He held up two of the views. In the first, the Cortland Iron Building, a battered brick warehouse with original painted advertising still visible along one side, was in the near fore-ground; in the second it was gone, replaced by low fencing covered with some kind of netting, reduced to another pile of rubble like the warehouse across from it.
“Father Dominic was wrong about when the letters stopped—Farrar was here, at this location, within the last six months.”
He turned and walked to the elevator, turning to add, “We need an address for the Cortland Building; I’ll go online. If we find the view in the postcard, we’ve found him.”
And she was through.
She pulled up the last plank, rolling to lift it across her Precious Blood
393
body. Her clothes were torn, her hands raw, every muscle was quivering, but she could get out of the room. She could escape.
She wriggled back onto the mattress and reached for the water jug. Don’t want to get too dehydrated. She drank, then forced herself to finish the bread from the morning.
She flashed her watch. Six o’clock.
She breathed out. The crawlspace couldn’t be much deeper than a foot. Sixteen inches at the most. She could get into it, but the floor above would be right on top of her face, pressing down on her.
She imagined writhing her way under the floor, slowly being buried alive under rotting wood and the grime of a century, her every movement spraying more dirt into her hair and eyes and mouth, packing her nostrils and closing her throat. She wanted to be sick.
She drank more water.
She would crawl down into the hole, she would pull the mattress over it, and she would crawl or wriggle or writhe as long as she had to. She would escape.
But what if she got stuck? She imagined herself panicking, screaming as her mouth filled with dirt, her chest unable to suck the thick air down into her exploding lungs. Then the feeling of his rough hands as he grabbed her wrists and dragged her back.
Oh God—could he fit into the crawlspace? He was muscular, but he was wiry. He might. It would be a tight fit, but he might.
She took another gulp of water, then drained the bottle.
She breathed in, and then out, wriggling until her back was against the wall. She tucked her knees up, and then twisted to her left, easing her legs down into the hole. Her feet disappeared under the floorboards as she let her legs straighten, pushing herself gradually away from the wall.
Her hips started to slip under the floor, catching a little on the edges. Her back slid down the wall, shoulders scrap-394
j o n at h a n h ay e s
ing. Her knee locked as she tried to straighten, and there was sharp stinging as her stomach scraped across the broken nails. But she was now sitting in the crawlspace, her neck and upper chest and arms still in the room.
She stopped.
Had she heard him?
She listened.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
She didn’t like that. When he made noise, she knew where he was—his fucking grinding wheel was like the bell on a cat. But it was quiet, the building silent except for her panting. He could be moving toward her on tiptoe, ready to drag her out.
Then she thought of something worse: what if he’d been expecting her to do this, and was waiting under the floor for her? Waiting for her with a knife, or a cattle prod or meat hook or something.
Tears streamed down her face. She was losing it—the notion was ridiculous. She had to hold it together.
God, give me strength!
She closed her eyes and thought it again. God, give me strength. I’m scared and I’m all alone, and it’s dark, and he wants to hurt me, and I don’t know what I’m doing. Please help me. Jesus. Please help.
She thought of all the bad things she’d done, the lying, the cheating. The drugs. The men. The women. And she th
ought about how far she was from everything, just floating in this death-filled black void, trying not to die, trying to stay alive just a bit longer. The tears came faster now.
Help me, Jesus.
Her frozen fingers interlaced as she let her head bow down. Help me to find strength. Help me fight back. Help me to live. Let me live. Let me live and I will be good.
Her hands relaxed into the bonds, and as the tension in Precious Blood
395
her muscles dropped, she felt the bonds slip a little on her forearms.
They were looser. She might be able to get them off.
She tugged them apart, worked her arms together and then apart, trying to coax some more give into the ropes.
She knew she had to leave right then, get out while she could. She could work on the bonds inside the crawlspace.
Now she had to get out, go, start crawling. Because she was going to escape. She was going to get away, and lead back men who would kill this man.
The fucker. The fucker. The fucker. He was not going to kill her.
Time to go.
She stiffened her arms and swung them forward. With shaking fingers, she flashed her watch one more time, shone the feeble orange light around the room, fixing it in her memory. It would give her drive, it would push her on. The light failed and she pressed it again, turning her wrist now toward the door. The pictures.
There they all were, the girls he’d taken, the girls he’d taken and cut up and butchered and killed. Andie. All of them.
She was different. He was not going to kill her.
She slipped completely under the floorboards, sliding along, letting her arms follow her in an almost graceful curve, Ophelia sinking into the annihilating crawlspace.
She was escaping. Time to go.
Jenner couldn’t get through—the Inquisitor Task Force line stayed busy. He finally reached the desk sergeant. Jenner tried to give his information, but the cop wasn’t interested.
“Sorry, sir, Dr. Jennings, but we have a situation right now.
There’s been an incident at the Union Square subway station, and we’re having a Level Four contingency response. If you 396
j o n at h a n h ay e s
have information for the squad or the Task Force, please call back and leave a message on the voice mail.”
Jenner felt cold. An incident at Union Square requiring an All Hands response— now what?
He shook himself. He was out, he wasn’t involved, it wasn’t up to him to make decisions, to set up triage, to worry about the implications. Not his problem. He had to find Ana.
He turned to Jun. “Where’s your car?”
“At the Lexus shop over on Eleventh Avenue. Routine maintenance.”
Jenner shook his head. “We’ll get a cab.”
On the street it was mayhem. Ambulances were snarled in the jam of last-minute shoppers, and the air was filled with honking horns and yelping sirens. People streamed from the subway entrances as police officers waved away confused commuters.
On the corner of Houston and Crosby, they asked a cop directing traffic what was going on.
“Explosion at Union Square. They’re shutting down the subway. Bridges and tunnels will probably be closed, too.”
He turned his back to them, pointing both arms at a white box van idling at the light. He yelled, “You! You!
Keep it moving! Wake up, buddy! I’m talking to you! Keep moving!” pointing his fingers at the driver and jerking both arms toward himself as he urged the van forward into the gridlocked intersection.
It was hopeless. Even if they could find a taxi, the streets were so choked now that nothing was budging.
He turned to Jun. “We have to walk. We can cut through the Lower East Side, over to Delancey, then go across the Williamsburg Bridge. Keep an eye out for taxis—maybe we can get across the bridge before they close it to traffic.”
They walked quickly, setting off down Lafayette. After about twenty minutes, Jun spotted a livery cab that had just dropped off a passenger, an old black Lincoln Town Car with T&LC plates.
Precious Blood
397
Jun waved at the driver, who flashed his lights. He was the tiniest Haitian man Jenner had ever seen, completely bald, without eyebrows, his trim little frame clad in a boxy black suit. The passenger-side window slid down smoothly. He leaned slightly toward them.
“Where do you want to go?” He had a thick accent, and pronounced the syllables with elaborate care, as if he was rolling marbles in his mouth.
“We need to go to Williamsburg. Down to the waterfront near Greenpoint.”
The driver casually looked Jenner up and down, his eyes narrowing as he saw Jun and his expensive orange fur coat.
“That would be one hundred dollars.”
Jun said, “But it’s a ten-minute drive!”
“Not today. Today it is not ten minutes. It is not twenty minutes. It is maybe thirty minutes, if we are lucky. Maybe longer.”
Jenner said, “Jun, it doesn’t matter. We need to get there.”
They got in the car.
“Please pay now.”
Twenty minutes later, they were still inching east on Delancey. At Suffolk, the traffic ground to a complete halt.
The blare of horns became deafening; drivers and passengers were getting out of their cars to peer ahead.
Jenner stood next to the Lincoln in the crook of the open door. To his left, a turbaned Sikh was talking into a cell phone next to a yellow cab with its Off Duty lights lit, gesturing to the unseen listener as he stared toward the bridge.
Jenner tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, do you know what’s going on ahead?”
“Very bad! Bomb at Union Square. National Guard close bridge. No one can leave now! All bridges, all tunnels.”
Jenner felt faint. He tapped on the livery cab’s roof.
“Jun! Get out. They’ve closed the bridges and the tunnels.
That explosion at Union Square was a bomb. They’re shutting down Manhattan.”
398
j o n at h a n h ay e s
Jun climbed out and slammed the door. “What do we do?”
“We walk. They’ve got to be open to foot traffic.”
Jun nodded. Jenner was already on the median, walking toward the bridge.
Behind Jenner, Jun looked back and slowly raised his middle finger to the livery car driver, now completely locked in immobile traffic. The little man shrugged, smiled softly, and held the one hundred dollars up, fanning out the twenties and waving them gently.
Farrar stood back and admired his work.
The stubby cross was finished, the four-by-fours nailed securely together. He’d kept the upright to almost seven feet; if he sank it fifteen inches into the ground, her feet would be supported a couple of inches off the earth. He would begin working on her up in his room, where he had all his tools, then carry her down to the courtyard. There he would put her on the cross and move her out of the warehouse buildings in the handcart. He would cover her with the tarps, toss on some junk, and any passing driver would dismiss him as just another homeless man with a cart out gathering scrap metal.
He looked out toward the river and realized that it had gone dark some time ago. He pulled his coat around himself, feeling the night’s chill. The ground at the church would be frozen now; he’d need a tool to dig with if he was going to get the upright securely planted. For a second he wondered whether it was worth the extra effort, but he caught himself with a grin. As Father Martin used to say, “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” At least the bastard was right about something.
The streets would be empty when he wheeled her to the church, but when the first flames rose and the alarm was sounded, a crowd would quickly gather in the churchyard and witness it before the cops shut the scene down.
Precious Blood
399
The thought warmed him. He wished he had a shovel, but it was something he’d never
needed—he didn’t bury his prey.
His eyes lit on a five-foot cast-iron rail, an upright from a segment of Victorian fence he’d found near the Gowanus. He picked it up, felt its weight. It would do nicely.
He powered up the old generator, went back to his workbench, and began grinding the tip of the pole to a sharp, chisel-like edge.
Midway through he paused, turned, and made a few jab-bing motions with the sharpened rail. It had a satisfying heft; it would make digging a posthole in the frozen cemetery ground as easy as scooping melted ice cream.
Holding the iron bar at its center, he spun it around like a windmill, his movements smooth and powerful. He was delighted—it really was the perfect size for him. He could put it to use for far more than just digging in the dirt.
He went back to sharpening it, relaxed at the thought of the pleasures the next twenty-four hours would bring. He thought about the girl lying in her little cell, listening to the grinding.
The National Guard blockade of the Williamsburg Bridge was utter chaos. The sergeant in charge, a pale young man who couldn’t have been twenty-five, had stationed most of the men out on the bridge roads, waving back the approaching cars. Apparently following an established contingency plan, his men were detaining and searching vehicles SUV-size or larger. The combination of cars being turned back into the unyielding knot of blocked traffic, and larger vehicles being waved forward, only to be stopped for searching, had locked the intersection cold. The whole mess was made worse by the thin stream of inbound cars still filtering across from the Brooklyn side, blocking one possible exit for the cars trapped on the bridge approach.
Drivers were becoming increasingly upset, blasting their 400
j o n at h a n h ay e s
horns and shouting at each other. The blare of horns was punctuated by the sporadic crunch of low-speed impacts as drivers pushed and pulled their way through what was now something between a parking lot and a demolition derby, trying to get up over the median and back onto westbound Delancey Street.
In the crush of people squeezing onto the bridge’s pedestrian walkway, Jenner could only spot Jun ahead of him because of his bright orange coat; any other day, he’d have given him hell about it. The press of bodies was becoming frightening; each surge carried him a little further forward, almost lifting him up off his feet. He kept one hand firmly on the wallet in his pants pocket and let the swelling crowd motion bear him toward the checkpoint.
Precious Blood Page 34