Suddenly Shirley doubled over. “My own …” She was in agony, tears streaming down her face. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My own,” she repeated. “My love. My sweetest boy.”
“That’s enough, my darling. You’ve had such a shock this evening. “She’s been like this for a while. I don’t know what to say to her anymore. Search all you want, both of you. Right, Shirley?”
He held her face in his hands and kissed her cheeks. “Shirley, dearest, snap out of it.”
She said nothing.
“Right, Shirley?” he repeated. “I’m talking to you.”
“What’s the use, Stanley? It’s over.”
He shook her then, his voice morphing into a quiet snarl. “Get a grip. You’ll be better in the country.”
“Let’s go,” Jane said, and started up the stairs. I followed, looking back down at the couple, who stood silent for a moment before retracing their steps and joining us on the landing. They said nothing while Jane fumbled with the keys.
“Let me make it easier for you.” That was Stanley Ellston being helpful. With a single movement of his fingers, he found the right key and inserted it into the lock. The door opened and I expected to hear movement coming from inside, but the room was quiet.
He turned on a few lights. “We’ll just sit on the couch, won’t we, Shirley dear, while you look.”
The layout was similar to the third-floor apartment. A small entryway off the landing led to a compact living room on one side of a hall running to the back, a small dining room on the other side, the kitchen, bathroom, and a single bedroom in the rear, a set of back stairs leading off the kitchen. The place was impeccable and I should know. Free of dust, tidy except for a stack of magazines on a table in front of the couch. Stanley, who sat close to his wife, picked up a National Geographic and began turning the pages. The magazine trembled in his hands as he held a page out to his wife. “Remember Venice? What year was that, my sweet?”
She sat still, staring at the photo, uncomprehending, kneading a tissue in one hand and once in a while dabbing at her eyes. I figured being a druggist, probably a pharmacist, Stanley had slipped his wife a handful of pills.
Jane and I began our search of the apartment, Stanley following behind like the ghost of a bad dream. We walked through each room, inspecting everything in sight, lifting cushions, looking under furniture.
“Do you have a computer?” Jane asked.
“In the drugstore.” Although he stood close to us, he sounded ten miles away.
In the bedroom was a large walk-in closet. Clothes were neatly hung, like with like. On one side were Stanley’s clothes, on the other, Shirley’s. I shone my flashlight on the floor. No signs of a ten-year-old, but also, no motes of dust. All spaces were neat and uncluttered. Same for the kitchen, where pans gleamed, counters and sink sparkled.
Stanley left his wife sitting on the couch like a stone statue and led us back down the stairs to the drugstore, turning on all the lights. We searched the aisles and the back room. No Dorset. At one point I stopped, hearing noise, a scratching. My heart was in my mouth as I moved closer to the sound, but it was only an animal, an outdoor cat scratching at the door.
“Do you have storage in the basement?”
Stanley nodded and seemed to hesitate. “It’s filled with supplies. Are you sure you want to go down there?”
Biding for time? We said nothing and he shrugged, showing us a door that led down a flight of wooden stairs into a dank airless room. Halfway down, I stopped. Listening for the sounds of a ten-year-old. If she was here, I would feel it, and I felt nothing. Not trusting my intuition, though, I wasn’t ready to give up. If she was here, this was the place they’d hide Dorset.
We were several feet below ground and the cement beneath my feet was cold. I shone my flashlight around. The space was filled with boxes. Most were sealed. Jane and I walked over and checked the names on the labels, all of them addressed to Ellston Drugs and looking like they’d been sent directly from drug manufacturers or wholesale suppliers of paper and toiletries.
Jane walked over to the outer wall where a piece of glass beamed back her flash. The window was several inches above the ground and a foot or so below the ceiling. “Check this out.” Her voice was hollow sounding, reverberating off stone. The panes were covered with dirt and insect debris—dead flies, pieces of wings, shriveled leaves caught in spiderweb fragments. I went over and stood beside her, rimming the frame with my flashlight and checking the sash.
“For light only. We never open it,” Stanley said, “and the glass can’t be broken.”
“What kind of glass—”
There was a distinct moan coming from somewhere close by.
“Dorset’s here, isn’t she?”
Suddenly there was a loud whooshing sound and I stopped, trying to swallow back the innards that had flown up to my mouth. In the corner, red light reflected on the wall. My temples tattooing a crazy beat, I walked over and stopped. Only the furnace coming to life.
A side door flew open and I saw a figure emerge. Dark and foreboding and backlit with red light—it seemed like the devil himself emerging from the flames.
The form whirled in front of us.
“Just in time,” Stanley hissed.
Realizing what was about to happen, I reached for my pepper spray, aimed it at the newcomer, and pressed the trigger. Nothing happened.
I held out the spray and pulled again. Dead. Then I remembered it skittering across the Thatchley floor earlier that evening.
At that instant, I saw Jane fall. Like a puppet collapsing, she buckled over, her pistol clattering to the cement floor.
I felt a blow to the back of my head. Too late. I was too late for my father and too late for Dorset. Before I blanked out, I pictured Denny smiling in the backyard. He was holding onto the twins.
Denny and Lorraine
Denny paced the floor. “She should have been home an hour ago. Something’s wrong, I know it.”
There was cooing coming from the intercom, the sound growing more insistent.
“Carmela,” Denny said.
Lorraine let her son tend to his daughter while she searched for Tig Able’s number. She should have known. She should have insisted that Denny go with his wife, but she thought Jane would have backup and that would be enough protection. After all, off-duty detectives carried guns, didn’t they? She dialed the agent’s number, but there was no answer, so she left a message. Should she phone Cookie? She didn’t think that would be wise; it would disrupt their whole family, and at such a late hour, they’d never get back to sleep. Still, the nagging thought that Fina’s life was on the line wouldn’t go away. She sat for a while, wondering what to do, until Denny came down with his daughter tucked underneath one arm.
“I can’t stay here and do nothing, Mom.” He handed Carmela to Lorraine.
“Hold on, Denny. You know I don’t mind staying, but we must plan; we must remain calm.”
“Calm?” He pulled at his hair, an involuntary gesture he’d done since childhood whenever he was upset. “My wife’s not answering her phone. We can’t locate Jane Templeton. It’s after four in the morning. If anything happens to Fina …”
Just then Lorraine’s cell began chiming. Tig Able. The news wasn’t reassuring. She listened to him as she rocked her granddaughter. He told her NYPD and special agents had teamed up and searched the building housing Ellston Drugs. Top to bottom. They found no one. Except there were indications of a struggle and a quick getaway. They’d gone through the garage in back of the store. No vehicle inside but exhaust fumes told them there’d been one there recently. Their techs were trying to pick up tire tracks. What’s more, they’d confiscated two computers, one locked in an old metal filing cabinet in a back room behind the pharmacy and another hidden in a worktable in the garage. A geek was trying to break into them now. He told Lorraine to sit tight and give them an hour—they’d know more about the Ellstons and where they could have gone after they’d
combed the files.
“That’s the good news,” Tig said.
Lorraine gripped her phone.
“In the basement my agents found a malfunctioning can of pepper spray.”
She turned to Denny. “Did Fina have a weapon?”
He stared at her.
“A weapon of any sort?”
“Pepper spray. I made her take it with her earlier this evening. I hope she still has it.”
No matter if she woke them, Lorraine had to call Cookie to see what she knew about the Ellstons. A groggy Clancy answered and Lorraine, feeling her temples pound, told him about Fina’s disappearance and pumped him for information about the Ellstons. She could hear Cookie talking in the background. “They’re such sweet people. There’s no need to disturb them at this hour after all they’ve been through.”
Lorraine asked to speak with Cookie. “If the Ellstons were hiding Fina and Jane, where would they have taken them?”
“Impossible,” Cookie said. She was speaking rapidly. “They wouldn’t do that. They are an old, loving couple. They just lost their upstairs tenants. Shirley went crazy when I told her about the man lying on the floor. ‘Which one? Which one? Not Jerry?’ Crying, hugging herself. Stanley had to give her something.”
“Well, Fina went to Ellston Drugs with Jane and now they’re missing. Vanished. Fina’s special agent friend called. He told me they searched the drugstore and the Ellstons have disappeared. They must have Jane and Fina. Their lives depend on us. Where would the Ellstons take them?”
Cookie was silent for a few seconds. “They have a farm in Dutchess County, I remember that because Shirley and Stanley were having words. Shirley loves the city. She doesn’t want to move, but Stanley does. He wants to retire.”
“Where exactly is this farm?”
Cookie hesitated. “Hold on while I get my notes.”
Denny threw on his jacket. Bending, he tapped his thigh and nodded.
Lorraine knew what that meant. Her son had one of those guns, too. Hidden. She hated them, but perhaps it was necessary this time. “Don’t you want to call Willoughby?”
“Trust me. They’re out looking for them now.”
“Don’t you want to wait for the Ellston farm’s address?”
“Call me when you have it.”
She watched as he punched a number into his phone, listened while it rang, and heard voicemail on the other end.
He was almost out the door when he turned to her. She’d never seen him so desperate. “I can’t wait any longer. You stay here with the kids. Pray, Mom.”
Dorset
Dorset’s Monologue
My heart is beating, so I know I’m alive. Gross, I wet myself. I’m glad April can’t see me or that ratty monsignor. April calls him Fahey, not to his face, though. I’ll call him Fahey from now on, I promise, even to his face.
I can tell by the smells and the sounds of birds and the straw sticking into my seat that I’m not in Jerry’s room. The sound of a car somewhere down a road I cannot see. I must be miles from home. One good thing: during the day, there’s enough light so I can draw. The kind woman caught me with my notebook when she brought me a sandwich. She frowned but didn’t say anything. Kindness out of the blue—an imponderable. And another one: Brook and Brunswick don’t seem so bad to me now. I want to see them. I want to go home. I can’t think about Mom. I did at first, but it made me too sad. Footsteps approach. A crack of light.
“You must be hungry.” The voice is soft. It’s the woman again, muffled like from a great distance. “I’ve brought you some soup and another blanket.”
The Ride
From someplace far away, I imagined the twins crying. I stretched out as far as I could, staring at them in their cribs, pleading for me as I stood there unmoving. But I was unable to reach them. “Leave them alone,” Denny said. “They’ve got to learn to live without you.”
When I woke up, I felt cramped and sick. I swore to myself I wouldn’t vomit, so I forced myself to swallow my own bile. With a rancid taste in my mouth, I tried to sit up, but the space was too small and my ankles were tied, my wrists bound in back of me. It felt like I was being buried alive. My heart started to race. I gasped for air and squirmed, trying to rub away the cloth covering my mouth and nose. I told myself to remain calm. I’d been in tighter spots than this before and had gotten out of them.
With my fingers stretched, I felt in my back pocket for my phone. Gone. Turning onto my side and jackknifing, I tried to reach the pocket where I kept a small Swiss Army knife but couldn’t get beyond the roll of fat now blanketing my midriff like an inner tube. I tried to turn but couldn’t. Then I stopped and listened. I was in the trunk of a moving vehicle, the ride smooth and fast. Again I tried to sit up by twisting my body to one side and crooking my arms as much as possible, levering myself up a few inches, one elbow taking all my weight, my other arm almost coming out of its socket. Why hadn’t I lost those ten pounds? More like twenty.
I stopped and listened. We were on a highway going way too fast, and in a few minutes I was jolted back down, my head hitting the metal floor with a thud, my heart beating like a wild drum. In a second my arms and shoulders would come off.
What was the use? I rested. Or maybe blacked out. When I came to, I squirmed, moving a few inches to my left and hitting the side of the vehicle, kicking the space in the other direction as hard as I could with my feet.
It was then that I felt a hard jab to my shin and heard a growl coming from something next to me. Or someone. Sweat trickled down my forehead. Then hope.
“Jane?” I tried to say, but the word came out garbled.
Angry moans in response. It was Jane, all right, I could tell by the muffled fury beneath her words. I almost laughed in relief—the blonde detective sounded the same, even gagged.
The car slowed and I could feel my heart pounding, sweat now pouring into the cloth binding my eyes. In a moment we would stop; the driver would slam the door, open the trunk. No time to lunge—it would be all over.
Maybe if I could loosen my gag, I could talk to Jane and we could figure out a way to free ourselves, but how? When I moved my head, I almost saw light, or maybe it was my imagination. Rocking back and forth, I twisted my head, trying to loosen whatever bound me.
“Keep still, you idiot!” Jane hissed, her words free and clear.
As the car sped up again, I could feel a tugging as the rope dug into my wrists. Jane was grunting.
“Quiet!”
Suddenly my hands were free and I lost what little balance I had. Doubling over, I hit the floor and almost passed out.
“Slow down!”
As if the driver could hear, he obeyed and the car slowed into a turn. What would happen if we stopped now? But we didn’t. Who knew how much time we had?
I slouched to one side, resting on the metal and panting. It was getting harder to breathe. We were nearing our destination, I could feel it. The car was on a side road now, twisting with the curves, maybe going thirty, thirty-five. We turned and I could hear the crunch of gravel as we crept along. Quickly I worked on the rope around my ankles. The knot was easy to untie—not the work of a professional—and for a few minutes I rubbed my legs to get the circulation going before whipping off my gag.
The car stopped and I rocked forward.
“Do as I say,” Jane whispered. “On your knees, then onto your feet and crouch. Get ready to pounce as soon as the trunk is open. Watch that you don’t hit your head.”
I waited in that cramped position next to Jane, hearing the crunch of gravel. Footsteps getting closer. Voices. Indistinct at first. More than one person. A woman’s admonition to her partner. Then, “You worry too much.”
The sound of a latch. Blinding light.
“Now!” Jane yelled and I sprang forward, the air filling my lungs. Heady. I thought I would faint as I clung to rough cloth, a jacket, suddenly falling forward on top of Stanley Ellston’s bulk.
With all the strength I had, I got to my
feet, pulling at his jacket. From somewhere deep within me, I yanked him up. Dizzy and taking ragged breaths, I crouched down and shot up, my knee hitting his groin. He doubled over, yelling in pain. For an instant I turned to see Jane grappling with Shirley Ellston. Then I heard Jane screaming at me to watch my back and felt a blow to my shoulder. Another one to the side of my head. I slumped into blackness.
Snooping
Cookie hadn’t gotten much sleep. The only good news in the whole deal was that Denny and Clancy had forgotten all about Poughkeepsie, at least for a while, and had joined Willoughby in the search for Jane and Fina.
What was up with Fina? As usual she was a crazed loon when she got a case, especially when it involved a missing child. But now she was just too wild, going off on her own in the middle of the night. No wonder she’d gotten herself into trouble.
Cookie squeezed her eyes shut and counted to ten, but the noises in the house without the children or Clancy around were too weird. For one, they’d have to do something about that refrigerator. She’d just about dozed when the motor sparked into life once again, so loud it sounded like a jet engine. It had come with the house when they bought it. They’d had it repaired several times, but Clancy told her to sit tight about it; she’d have to wait until they had the money to refurbish the kitchen. Whenever that would be—years, Cookie reckoned. Topping it off, she was worried about Fina, whom she’d texted practically every minute. No response. The last time she’d phoned, there was no ringing, only a canned voicemail message coming from the ether. She wondered if she could be mistaken about Shirley Ellston. Maybe Stanley had it in him to take Dorset. Come to think on it, she didn’t trust the man—too full of himself by half, as her late father would say—although why he’d take Dorset was beyond her. But not Shirley. Shirley’d never take a child. Never. Shirley had an artistic sensibility and, what’s more, a love of language. Therefore, she couldn’t be a crook. Cookie switched on the light and reached for Pride and Prejudice, the last pages so worn that the type was rubbing off the paper. She loved how the book ended and reread it practically every week, each time feeling Elizabeth’s joy, her sister’s disbelief, and the reader’s surprise all over again as if she were reading it for the first time.
Dorset in the Dark: A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Page 26