The girl was braless and wearing low-rider jeans. He could see the band of a black thong above her belt. She must be sixteen, he thought. Just like the girl who had choked on her own puke that night under the boardwalk. What a piece of ass she would have been.
The sea of bodies flowed in and out of shops, swarming around the food vendors with their sausages and french fries and pizzas. The smell of it all lay heavy on the dense air.
Two uniformed cops cut through the crowd, eyeing a gang of teenagers huddled around a park bench. The slick kid who had been with the girl that night was among them, the one who’d left her under the boardwalk before Sykes shot her with the stun gun.
As the girl in pink with pigtails stepped away from her father, a line of large-bellied men in Mellon Bank T-shirts came by; the policemen continued up the boardwalk, casually gesturing as they carried on a conversation.
Sykes took the Rio Grande exit ramp down to his Jeep and drove the half mile to Third Street, where he made a right turn and parked. He took a section of newspaper from his jacket pocket and unfolded a photograph of O’Shaughnessy, ran his fingers over it. His collar was damp, the open sore on his neck oozing blood. Her car was in the driveway and there were lights on in the house.
24
FRIDAY, JUNE 3
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Sherry had mixed feelings about Payne’s invitation. For one thing, they’d never done anything like it before, never gone away together. She knew that John was circumspect about their friendship at work, but he would have been totally open with Angie about the trip. He told Angie everything.
What John didn’t realize was that innocent or not, women applied different rules to friendships than men. Angie might not say anything, but she certainly wouldn’t have approved.
Then there was the fact that she felt guilty about her feelings—guilty and perhaps vulnerable. Reining in her emotions was one thing when you were obliged to say good-bye each evening. Could she do it if he was staying in the same room?
Not that there was ever a doubt of Sherry accepting. The decision had been made the moment she took Susan Paxton’s hand in the funeral home. From that moment on, she had become utterly and irrevocably involved. She was concerned about what she might learn, but she needed to know the ending. At any cost.
She was waiting for him when he got off work. She was wearing black slacks and a sleeveless black top, black bracelet and black earrings. She smiled as he came into the room.
“You look like June Carter Cash,” he told her.
“June Carter Cash?”
“Never mind.” He reached for her bag. He thought she still looked a little off color, but didn’t say anything.
He took her arm and led her to the circular drive, where he put her small bag in the car.
“It’s not going to be nice, I hear,” Payne said.
“The worse the better,” she said. “I love a good storm.”
Philadelphia rush hour was in true tangles with weekend revelers out in force. It was well after eight before they broke free of the suburbs. Payne was torn between telling Sherry now about the conversation he’d had with Angie or waiting until they returned. The last thing he wanted to do was make her feel that he had an ulterior motive for asking her to go. But there was another reason. If anything ever did come of their relationship, if Sherry really felt the same way that Payne did, he wanted them to have a fresh beginning. He wanted the experience to be unique, free of anything they had ever experienced before. Free of cops and corpses.
Difficult though it would be, he would wait until they got home.
Traffic was sparser near the coast, and what little there was of it was heading toward them, away from the beach. They didn’t reach the city limits of Wildwood until almost eleven. Payne called O’Shaughnessy from his cell phone.
The white stucco building was nestled between two towering hotels. It was a three-story building with blue spotlights in an oyster shell drive, illuminating a wooden sign that read DRIFTWOOD. Parking was directly under the condos at street level; a stairwell and elevator led to the eighteen units above.
O’Shaughnessy was sitting on the steps when they arrived. She wasn’t exactly sure who she had been expecting, but it wasn’t the woman in the passenger seat.
She got up and walked toward the car with Pennsylvania plates, went to the driver’s window where Payne stuck out his hand. “Good to meet you, Lieu. This is my friend Sherry Moore. Sherry, meet Lieutenant O’Shaughnessy.”
“Call me Kelly.” She crouched. The woman’s head turned, but the eye contact wasn’t right. O’Shaughnessy knew something was amiss even before her eyes dropped to the walking stick.
Oh, my God, she thought, running around the car and opening the woman’s door. “Here, let me help.” She grabbed the woman’s arm and guided her out.
“I’ll just follow.” Payne smiled, knowing Sherry hated to be coddled. He pulled two small bags from the trunk. “Is that an elevator?”
“Yes, and we’re lucky,” O’Shaughnessy said. “It’s actually working.”
The ocean smell was strong off the front of the storm. The elevator doors opened and closed again, the platform raised and jolted hard to a stop. O’Shaughnessy led them down the concrete hall and unlocked the door. “Come right in,” she said, dashing ahead. “The bathroom is back here.” She was grabbing anything that Sherry could trip over. “There’s no tub, I’m afraid, just a shower.”
She picked up things as fast as she could, nudged furniture against the walls: an ottoman, a magazine rack, a small iron stand with plants on it. What an idiot I am, she thought. She hadn’t even researched her guest, which would have been all too easy. Of course, the detective could have said something, too. Or maybe she was just overreacting. Maybe they didn’t behave as if she was blind. Maybe she should ease up.
“There’s a can of coffee above the sink and a coffeemaker on the counter. Regular old thing, filters are next to it. Linens and extra blankets, soap, toilet paper are all in the hall closet. I made up the bed with clean linens this afternoon.”
“It’s really nice,” Payne said. “I had no idea we would be on the ocean. I hope you didn’t go to too much trouble getting it.”
“Actually, it’s mine; it was my mother’s before she passed away. I still can’t bring myself to rent it, so it’s just sitting here, going to waste.”
“Oh, I hope we’re not imposing,” Sherry said. “I don’t want—”
“Hush,” O’Shaughnessy said. “I’m thrilled to have you. You’ll breathe some life back into the place. Sorry it’s for a storm instead of sunshine, but storms can be pleasant if the worst of them stay out to sea. I read about you in The Boston Globe once. Your life must be very interesting.”
The Boston Globe meant she’d read about Norwich.
“Sometimes,” was all Sherry could manage to say.
O’Shaughnessy looked around. “Yes, well, the couch is right here; it’s a pullout.” She glanced at Payne; his wedding ring was visible on his left hand. “Over there is the kitchenette; dishwasher’s under the counter. Dining room table here and just to the side are sliding glass doors to the balcony. It’s not enormous, but there’s room for two to sit comfortably.” She made a face and shrugged. “Don’t know how long the rain will hold off, though. Do you want me to move the coffee table out of the room?”
“We want to pay you,” Sherry said.
“I won’t hear of it,” O’Shaughnessy replied. “And I mean that.”
“No, no, this is far too much.”
“We’ll talk about it later, then. As for tomorrow,” she said, turning to Payne, “I suggest we kill two birds with one stone. I have a one o’clock appointment in Vineland, about an hour north, and won’t return until after three. If you have no objections, I’ll have my sergeant take you around to show your suspect’s sketch. When I get back I’ll take Sherry to dinner and then later, when no one is around, to the morgue.”
“Sounds fine,” P
ayne said.
“Good. You must be tired.” O’Shaughnessy headed for the door. She couldn’t tell if there was something more between the detective and Sherry Moore or if she was just being overly suspicious. Ever since Tim’s tryst in Saint Paul, it seemed she had been dissecting every couple she met.
“There’s a phone on the dresser next to the bed and another on a stand by the chair. Number for me is easy, 228-2800. If you forget it, I’m in the book.”
“Thanks,” Payne said.
Sherry stepped back into the room from the open balcony. “Yes, thanks.” She waved.
The whole thing had taken only forty minutes, but O’Shaughnessy was utterly exhausted. She crossed Atlantic and started up the block toward her house, turned, and looked back at the condo. Blind! What a shocker. There was something between those two, she thought once more.
She looked north toward the pink and yellow lights on Strayer’s Pier to the revolving Ferris wheel; it was where she and Tim had first met.
She was wearing shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt; the air was sticky with salt, just cool enough to raise goose bumps. You could see the sea mist hanging under the glare of the street lamps.
She hadn’t thought she could forgive Tim for what he did. Two months ago, she was only sure that she wanted him out of the house. Now she wasn’t so certain she’d done the right thing.
The woman he’d slept with owned one of his company’s affiliates in Saint Paul. The trip was to celebrate their first-year financials and the board wanted photos of the two management teams for propagation to new acquisitions. The Saint Paul woman had planned the dinner and drinks for the out-of-town visitors. She was divorced, and Tim said there were just too many bars and too many cocktails and he didn’t remember all of how it ended except that he woke up in her bed and not in his hotel room, where O’Shaughnessy had been leaving messages throughout the night.
He should have spared her his need to confess. She would have forgiven him the damned night, if only he had waited to tell her. A month, maybe two, and the pain would have been bearable. Right now it hurt, and when people hurt they make bad decisions. Oh, God, she thought. Was that all she was doing? Were Jeremy Smyles and Sandy Lyons and Clarke Hamilton all just bad decisions?
The street was quiet. Most of the tourists were already in their rooms for the night. She could see lightning bugs blinking in the community playground across the street. Her daughters were at their father’s again.
She walked into her driveway and tapped the contentious coach lantern until it stopped flickering. Then she opened the unlocked door and closed it behind her. She heard a thump in the kitchen, the cat leaping off the counter and slinking through the dining room, seemingly uninterested in her return.
She put a pot of water on the burner and took a celery stalk from a cup in the refrigerator.
She thought about Sherry Moore; the woman was nothing like she’d expected. No wonder, she thought, that the press liked her so much. She was simply beautiful.
She ran the dishwasher. Then she put laundry in the machine and pushed the vacuum around. The girls’ things were strewn all over the house, but that was because they didn’t have a house anymore. They had stopovers where they sometimes ate and slept.
She called Tim’s; no one answered. Then she called her mother-in-law’s and found that Tim had dropped the girls and gone out for the night. Bastard!
She poured tea and turned on the eleven o’clock news. Clarke had left a message on her answering machine, but it was Tim she wanted to hear from. The television was on mute and she could see a weatherman pointing at the hurricane stuck over the Carolinas.
Tim, the girls, the Yolands—everyone exasperated her. She thought about making herself a drink but decided against it. Not with the way she’d been handling nicotine lately.
She picked up the phone and dialed. Headlights approached from a side street; a bar of light drifted across the dining room ceiling before it vanished. She punched in the last number and Clarke answered after a couple of rings.
“Too late for dinner?” she asked.
“I’ve retired my apron.” He laughed. “But I do have numbers for all the best carryouts.”
“Actually it wasn’t the entrée I was interested in. How are your desserts?”
“I have a wide variety of excellent desserts. Hang on a moment, please.” She heard footsteps on tile, a freezer door open and close. “How do Popsicles sound?”
“Sexy.”
It was almost 2:00 A.M. before she left Clarke’s and started for home. What had compelled her to call Clarke like that, right out of the blue, she didn’t know. Anger? Frustration? The fact that she couldn’t reach her husband whenever she pleased?
Oh, yeah, that’s right, she told herself. Project the blame on Tim. Make him responsible for her throwing herself into Clarke’s arms. How long could she keep telling herself that one?
She turned the corner onto her block and saw that she’d left an upstairs light burning.
What she really wanted Tim to know was that she hadn’t been able to go through with it in the end. That she’d taken off her clothes only to lie in Clarke’s arms and bawl about how much she missed her husband.
Why did she want to confess to Tim so badly? Was that what happened when you loved someone so much? Was that the reason Tim had hurried to confess to her when he returned from Saint Paul? Was his need to reconnect with her stronger than the risk of estrangement? Were his feelings so strong that the knowledge of what he had done wrong hurt him more than the consequence of telling his wife?
Oh, God, she thought. If only she had continued to communicate with him. It wasn’t like she had to come right out and forgive him, but she could have kept them talking. If only they had been talking, things might not have gotten to where they were.
She closed the door and a breeze met her from the kitchen; she walked toward it, stuck her head inside, and saw the back door standing open.
She backed up, looking up the stairwell to the second floor, cautiously passing through the dining room and into the foyer, where she reached to open the front door and ran to retrieve her Glock from her car’s locked glove box. Then she dialed 911 from her car phone.
Two marked units sat in O’Shaughnessy’s driveway while a third made circles around the neighborhood, sweeping its spotlight through neighbors’ lawns and into the dark park across the street.
Dillon happened to be the midnight sergeant who greeted her at the door.
She reached the top of the landing with two uniformed officers behind her, guns drawn. One of the officers turned the corridor in the direction of the girls’ bedrooms. The other followed her.
The windows were all raised; distant breakers pounded the shore.
She checked the closet, an empty bathroom, another closet, the master bath and master bedroom—and she gasped.
An American flag had been draped over the down comforter on her bed. She approached it cautiously, grabbed a corner, and slowly pulled it away.
“Oh, my God!” she whispered.
One of her dress blue uniforms had been laid out under it. Navy slacks, white shirt under navy jacket with the buttons done up, tie knotted at the neck, lieutenant bars on shoulders, sleeves folded one over the other—just like a corpse. She lifted the waist of the trousers to reveal a white silk thong from her dresser drawer and panty hose that stretched to the hems of her trousers.
She dropped the flag, shocked and embarrassed.
“Looks like someone was imagining you lying there dead in your thong, probably one of them desperados you been scaring the hell out of. Of course maybe it wasn’t work-related. You’d be surprised how many domestic situations get out of hand. Woman starts dividing her attention between two men and, bang, someone wants to see someone else dead. That’s always a possibility, if you know what I mean.”
Dillon was leaning against the door frame behind her, toothpick in his mouth, hand in pocket.
“Sergeant, would you mind wait
ing outside?”
“Why, no, ma’am, I wouldn’t mind that at all. Frankly I’ve seen all I need to see. You have a good night now. You have yourself a very good night.”
Dillon whistled loudly and the other officers came to the landing. “Come on, Mike, Vinnie, let’s get the hell out of here.”
25
SATURDAY MORNING, JUNE 4
WILDWOOD, NEW JERSEY
Dillon was just checking off the night shift when O’Shaughnessy arrived for work the next morning. He watched her enter her office, avoiding his stare, and heard the door close behind her. “Big shit lieutenant,” he told a rookie. “Women cops are all the same, son, seen it a hundred times. Give them a job to do and all you get is lots of drama. If you want results, ask a man. That’s the way it’s always been in police work. We should never have hired the first of them and we sure as shit shouldn’t promote them ’cause their daddy happened to be a fucking chief.”
He finished checking off the last of the officers and closed the section log. “Hey, what say we get a couple of beers? I’ll tell you about the time we found them crispy critters in the Video Hut fire.” He looked up with a smile. “Tell you what Lieutenant O’Shaughnessy wears under them britches, too.”
“Sure,” the kid said enthusiastically.
Dillon and the rookie took off their uniform shirts and drove to the harbor in T-shirts with their guns on their hips. Jeremy Smyles was just stepping out of the door of the Crow’s Nest with his Styrofoam cup in one hand when they arrived.
“Find any more rings under the boardwalk, asshole?” Dillon poked a finger into the man’s chest as he was reaching for his paper spear.
“You know what I think? I think you’re not as stupid as you let on. I think they’re going to electrocute your ass when Jason Carlino gets a real investigator on you. You may be able to fool a bunch of stupid detectives, but you ain’t fooled me, boy. I saw them earrings and panties in your room. You’re a fucking pervert, and you’re lucky I don’t take you out in the Pine Barrens and shoot you right now. You hear me, you crazy sack of shit?”
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