Sleepwalker

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  But right now, with Ange showing signs of coming out of the coma, the case can wait. Rocky’s been at her side since early this morning. The doctors instructed him to talk to her, so he did, and when he ran out of things to say, he started singing to her—every song in his repertoire, with repeat performances of his favorites.

  “The Way You Look Tonight” was the first dance on their wedding day. He’s sung it maybe ten, twelve times in the last hour or two, filling in his own words wherever he forgets the lyrics. He knows that one pretty well, but some of the others, he has to wing almost completely.

  “What else do you want to hear?” he asks Ange. “More Sinatra?”

  He gets through a few lines of “Mack the Knife” before faltering on the lyrics.

  “Never mind,” he tells Ange. “How about some pop? ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’?”

  She’s not big on that song, but he’s always loved it, because it makes him think of her.

  “Okay, okay, I know—forget ‘Brown-Eyed Girl.’ This show is for you. I’ll do some Beatles.”

  He remembers teasing her back in junior high when she camped out in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater with a bunch of other girls, trying to catch a glimpse of the Fab Four. And he remembers being secretly, irrationally jealous of her favorite Beatle, Paul McCartney, for most of seventh grade and part of eighth.

  But Paul didn’t get to give Ange her first kiss. That privilege belonged to Rocky, on the deserted playground one cold January afternoon when the sky was impossibly blue and the wind kept whipping Ange’s long hair across her eyes as they talked, until he had to reach out and brush it away. He saw the expectant look in her big brown eyes right before she closed them, and he knew that she thought he was about to kiss her, so he did.

  Now, looking at those closed eyes, he remembers the first thing she said when she opened them that long-ago day after he kissed her.

  “Thank you.”

  Taken aback, he’d asked, “For what?”

  “For finally doing that. I thought I was going to have to make the first move.”

  They’ve laughed about that many times over the years.

  “Finally, Ange? You said finally? We were twelve years old. My voice hadn’t even changed yet. What did you expect, a full-blown Junior High Casanova?”

  “Well, at least you were a fast learner once you got things going.”

  Sitting here now, he brushes a tear from his eye, remembering that day on the playground with her. So many days on that playground with her, teeter-tottering when they were so little their legs didn’t touch the ground, pushing each other on the swings while their mothers chatted, and in later years, pointedly ignoring each other during recess—Ange skipping rope with the girls, Rocky playing stickball with the boys.

  There was never a time without Ange.

  There will never be a time without Ange.

  “Okay,” he says, a bit hoarsely, “some Beatles. At least I know the words to most of those songs.”

  He sings “Love Me Do” and “She Loves You.” Ange’s favorite has always been “Michelle,” but damned if Rocky’s going to try that one—he has a hard enough time singing lyrics in English. Forget French.

  She likes “In My Life,” too—it was the mother-son dance at their boys’ weddings. But when Rocky tries to sing it, he only gets through the first line before his voice cracks and he can’t go on.

  “There are places I remember . . .”

  The playground . . .

  The old high school gym where we danced every dance, always . . .

  Home.

  He can’t seem to swallow the lump in his throat.

  “Mr. Manzillo?”

  Saved by the scrubs-clad nurse in the doorway. She’s not one of his favorites here, probably because she reminds him of Sister Margaret Joseph, a stern nun from his altar boy days. Her mouth is perpetually set in a disapproving slit and her eyes are black beads that, whenever they settle on him, make him feel as though he’s done something he shouldn’t have.

  “There’s a call for you at the desk from a Mr. Murphy. He said he’s been trying to reach you on your cell phone, but . . .”

  “It’s turned off.” See? I follow the rules, Sister. I mean, Nurse.

  “I told him someone would give you the message but he said it’s important and he needs to talk to you right away. He insisted on holding the line.”

  Rocky is already on his feet and giving Ange another quick kiss before following the disapproving messenger down the hall to the nurses’ station. She hands him the phone and advises him to make it quick. In exactly those words.

  “Murph? What’s going on?”

  “Sorry to bother you there. How’s Ange?”

  “The same.” Not really—better than the same—but now is not the time for details, even happy ones. “What happened?”

  He only has to wait a moment for the inevitable response, and in that moment, he guesses—correctly—what’s coming.

  “Looks like our friend’s been busy. We got another homicide.”

  “When? Today?”

  “No—back in September. No one linked it. And here’s the kicker: the victim was the wife of the prison guard on duty the night Jerry Thompson killed himself.”

  Rocky sucks in his breath. “Same signature? He took the middle finger?”

  “He took the whole damned arm, Rock, and served it up to her husband for lunch. Literally. This is one sick son of a bitch. I’m headed out to Sullivan right now. You coming?”

  Rocky hesitates only a moment.

  He thinks of Ange—and then of a ruthless killer already trolling for his next innocent victim. Someone else’s wife.

  “Yeah,” he says grimly. “I’m coming.”

  When the phone rings in the dead of night, Nathan Jennings is in the midst of a troubling dream—a nightmare, really.

  Jarred abruptly awake, all he recalls is that he was running as fast as he could down a dark road.

  Was he chasing someone? Or being chased?

  It doesn’t matter. It was just a bad dream. But the telephone ringing, at—checking the clock on the bedside table he sees that it’s 2:48 A.M.—that’s not a dream, and it’s not good.

  Sleeping beside him, Zoe doesn’t even stir as he reaches for the phone. She’s a notoriously heavy sleeper. When the kids were babies a few years back, she always relied on him to wake her when they cried for wee-hour feedings.

  As he lifts the receiver, his mind runs through various possibilities. Wrong number? Or has something happened to his aging mother? To Zoe’s aging father?

  “Hello?”

  He’s greeted by a barely audible whisper. “Nate?”

  “Yes . . . ?”

  “Mack.”

  “Mack? What’s wrong?”

  “My car died. I need a ride. Can you come get me?”

  Nate sits up, surprised.

  It’s not that he minds helping out, but . . .

  It’s just strange, that’s all, that Mack would call Nate of all people, and at this hour. But an old friend is an old friend.

  And after all, Nate did say to Mack and Allison, when he and Zoe left the Webers’ earlier, to call if there was anything they could do.

  “Seriously, we’d be happy to help if you need us,” Zoe chimed in. “I can watch your kids while you go to the funeral Monday if you want, or just to give you a little break.”

  Nate could see by the slightly stiff expression on Allison’s face as she thanked them that she wouldn’t be calling the Jenningses for a favor anytime soon. She’d just been through hell, he knew, and he didn’t blame her for not chitchatting with the rest of them as they shared drinks in the Webers’ family room.

  Zoe, however, had deemed her standoffish. “I pictured her differently,” she said in the car on the way home. “I mean, I’m sure it was hard for her to live up to his first wife, but—”

  “Give her a break, Zoe,” Nate had cut in. “She looked traumatized. You would be, too, if you’d just come fro
m the wake of your murdered friend—whose dead body you happened to discover, no less.”

  “Maybe,” she allowed. “But she just doesn’t seem like Mack’s type.”

  Nate didn’t ask who she thought Mack’s type might be, afraid he already knew the answer. That Zoe had harbored a serious crush on Mack back in their agency days was no secret to anyone—except maybe to Mack himself.

  Now that they’re all grown up married couples, there’s no reason to bring it up again. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of discomfort, seeing the way his wife watched Mack.

  As for Allison, he just wishes they could have met for the first time under more pleasant circumstances. He felt sorry for her and found himself second-guessing the wisdom of the drop-in condolence call, which had been Zoe’s idea, not his.

  “It’s what you do when a friend loses someone, Nate.”

  “Yes, maybe we should wait a bit.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know—to give them some time.”

  “Time for what? You don’t have to come with me, Nate, but I’m doing it.”

  When Zoe made up her mind like that, there was no stopping her.

  Nate is sure the visit wasn’t just an excuse to cross paths with Mack. Of course not. That would be a ridiculous assumption.

  Zoe is just feeling adrift up here in suburbia, and she’s eager to make new friends among the local moms. Allison and Randi are the logical place to start, right?

  Of course.

  “Where are you?” Nate asks Mack now, whispering as well—though he knows an air horn blast in her ear probably wouldn’t wake his sleeping wife.

  “Off the Saw Mill. Exit 37. You’ll see me.”

  “How about if I just—”

  There’s a click, and Mack is off the line.

  Nate is tempted to call him back and finish his sentence—which was going to be an offer to send over a tow truck instead. He presses the recall button on the phone, which brings up the number from which the call came.

  James MacKenna, the caller ID panel reads, above the date and time stamp. About to press the button that will automatically dial the number, Nate thinks better of it.

  I did tell him to call me if he needed anything. I guess I should be glad he did.

  With a weary sigh, Nate gets out of bed and hurriedly starts to dress.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the dead of a rainy November night, Sullivan Correctional Facility strikes Rocky as an infinitely dreary place. Possibly no less cheerful, he surmises, than it might be at high noon on a sun-splashed day. But now, bathed in the greenish light of low-watt LED bulbs, the small administrative room is terribly depressing. He can only imagine what it’s like over on the cell block, where Charles Nowak was on duty when Rocky and Murph arrived a short time ago.

  Now, as they sit waiting for someone to bring him in, a weathered-looking, heavyset female administrative assistant pours coffee from a filmy carafe into two foam cups.

  “Want cream and sugar?” she asks.

  “Cream,” Murph says.

  She grabs a tall canister, dumps a generous heap of white powder into one cup, adds a plastic stirrer, and looks at Rocky. “You?”

  “Just black, thanks.”

  “You sure?” Looking dubious, she offers a largely unnecessary “The coffee’s not that great here.”

  “I’m sure I’ve had much worse,” Rocky assures her, but after a sip, decides that might not be true.

  The woman lingers in the doorway. “Can I ask you a question?”

  Murph nods. “What’s that?”

  “My cousin’s kid has been missing for over six weeks now, and the cops won’t help her. They think he ran away.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “I don’t know. Robbie ain’t the best kid you ever met—he’s a dropout and he’s had some trouble with the cops and my cousin found drugs in his room—but she still don’t think he’d just take off and not call her for all this time.”

  The mothers never think that, Rocky thinks sadly.

  “Her name’s Ginny—Virginia—Masters, and her son’s name is Robbie. Robert Alan Masters. Can you help her out? Maybe just talk to her?”

  “Why are you asking us? We’re NYPD,” Murph points out. “Why not—”

  “Because you’re detectives, and the cops she’s talked to won’t help her. They wouldn’t even let her fill out a missing persons report right away because they said he don’t qualify.”

  “Where does your cousin live?” Rocky asks.

  “Over in Monticello.”

  “Sorry,” Murph tells her, “that’s not in our jurisdiction.”

  “This ain’t, either,” she points out with a stubborn gleam in her eye.

  Before they can respond, two men appear in the doorway. One is the prison official who was sent to summon Charles Nowak from his post; the other, a tall, gaunt man in a guard’s uniform, is presumably Nowak himself.

  “Detective Manzillo, Detective Murphy, this is Chuck Nowak.” He shoots a pointed look at the woman still waiting for help with her cousin’s missing son. She grumbles something under her breath and leaves the room, followed, moments later, by the official.

  Rocky puts her and the kid out of his head, sets the coffee cup aside, and reaches for his pencil and notebook.

  “We just want to ask you some questions about a case we’re investigating, Officer Nowak,” Rocky tells him, settling a pair of reading glasses on the end of his nose. “I understand that you recently lost your wife. I’m very sorry.”

  Murph echoes the sentiment.

  The widowed prison guard responds to their condolences and a few preliminary questions in bleak, monosyllabic monotones.

  Rocky scribbles “17 years” on the notebook—the amount of time Nowak says he’s been working here at the prison—and clears his throat, preparing to ask a question whose answer he anticipates as being less definitive.

  Murph voices it before he can, and much more bluntly. “Who do you think was responsible for the death of your wife, Officer Nowak?”

  The man visibly winces at that phrase—“death of your wife”—as though the loss is still too fresh to bear. His hands clench so tightly on the table that his knuckles are mottled white knobs.

  “I don’t know who did it.” Nowak finally lifts his dark gaze to meet Murph’s head-on. “Do you?”

  “The homicide squad hasn’t had any leads that I’m aware of.” Murph looks at Rocky, who nods in agreement.

  “But you have an idea?” Nowak’s questioning glance sweeps from Murph to Rocky. Neither of them answers that, of course.

  “Tell us about Jerry Thompson,” Rocky suggests, and Nowak’s dark eyebrows rise.

  “What about him? He’s dead.”

  “Killed himself by sipping cleaning fluid, right?”

  Nowak nods and drops his eyes again, but not before Rocky glimpses something unsettling in his expression.

  Murph goes on, “Why do you think he did that?”

  “Why did he kill himself, you mean? Who the hell knows?”

  And who the hell cares? The second question goes unspoken, but Rocky hears it loud and clear in Nowak’s tone.

  The guy is wondering why they’re wasting their time and his on a waste-case inmate whose life—and death—can’t possibly compare to his beloved wife, Cora’s.

  “Did he say anything before he died that . . . raised any red flags?” Murph asks.

  “About what? That he was going to kill himself?” At Murph’s nod, Nowak says, “Nope.”

  “What about the other guys? Did he talk to them?”

  “You mean, did he tell them what he was planning to do?” Nowak shrugs. “I have no idea.”

  Again, the peculiar, fleeting expression in his eye, and a slight hesitation in his voice.

  Intrigued, Rocky says, “Jerry Thompson didn’t have access to cleaning fluid, Officer Nowak. Someone got it for him.”

  “What, you think I did that?”

&
nbsp; “I think you have some idea who might have.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  Ignoring that question, Rocky asks, “Who was it, Officer Nowak?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Oh yes, you do.

  “All right, then . . . who do you think it might have been?”

  Something seems to shift in Nowak’s brain, and he surprises Rocky by saying simply, “Doobie Jones.”

  “Doobie?” Rocky echoes, writing it down.

  “Jones. Right. Doobie—that’s what they all call him.”

  “What’s he in for?”

  “Rape. Assault. Murder,” Nowak intones. “He had the cell right next to Thompson’s, and he worked in janitorial. He could have gotten his hands on it, no problem.”

  “On the cleaning fluid.”

  “Right.” Nowak shrugs.

  “Why would he do that? Were they friends?”

  “They talked.”

  “What about?” Murph asks.

  “I don’t know. A lot of things.”

  “He talk to anyone else?”

  “Probably.”

  We’re going to talk to every inmate here who had regular contact with Jerry Thompson, Rocky silently tells Murph, who nods before posing the next question to Nowak:

  “So you think Jerry asked this Jones person to help him commit suicide?”

  “For all I know, it was his idea.”

  “Jones’s idea?” Rocky asks, and raises an eyebrow at Murph when Nowak nods.

  “It could have been. He’s a master manipulator and Thompson was one of those guys who could be talked into just about anything.”

  Those words settle over Rocky like a clammy cloak as he remembers Thompson’s halting confession.

  “You never said anything to anyone about your . . . suspicion?” Murph asks.

  “No one ever asked.”

  “And now . . .”

  “You’re asking. Listen, I don’t give a rat’s ass what happened to Jerry Thompson or what happens to Doobie Jones. I don’t even care about finding whoever . . . hurt Cora. She’s gone. Nothing’s gonna bring her back. I just thought . . . maybe that was why you were here. Because you knew something.”