“Besides food.”
“Whiskey.”
“I’ll buy you one, Manzillo. Johnnie Walker Blue, if we solve this case.”
“I won’t hold my breath for that.”
“For me to buy you expensive whiskey, or for us to solve the case?”
“Either one.”
Rocky leaves her on the sidewalk with her cigarette, a faint grin playing at his mouth. She’s not Murph, but she’s growing on him.
Inside, he’s pleased to see his friend Richie D—short for Di Bernarducci—behind the counter, a clean white apron over his Yankees pinstripe jersey. He likes to break Rocky’s chops about the Red Sox the second Rocky walks in the door, but today, he greets him with a warm handshake.
“Hey, Detective Manzillo, it’s good to see you. I been worried about you. Where’s Detective Murphy?”
“On the pile. His brother’s missing.”
“Jesus. Everybody’s got somebody missing.” Richie’s triple chins jiggle as he shakes his head. “My nephew Vince, he’s with the PAPD, but he was off duty when it hit. He’s pretty broken up about it, though.”
“I’m sure he is.” Rocky heard that the Port Authority Police Department is missing at least three dozen officers.
Every time it hits him again—the staggering crisis in this city, his city—he’s stunned all over again.
He’s always pretty good at compartmentalization; you have to be, if you’re going to do what he does. But on this day, tragedy seeps into every corner of his world, blurring boundaries, permeating every line of thought, every conversational thread.
“I didn’t know if the bridges or tunnels were even open the last few days, so I didn’t bother trying to get in here till now,” Richie tells him.
“Where do you live, Jersey?”
“Nah, out on the Island.”
Rocky is about to lighten the mood by teasing that Richie’s probably the only Yankees fan living out there in Mets territory, but then he sees the somber expression on Richie’s face.
“There are a bunch of firemen missing from my town, and a bunch of brokers, too. Guys—women, too. They got up in the morning and went to work and they’re never coming back. Who would have thought this could happen?”
Rocky remembers talking about the Island—Long Island—with great disdain when he was younger, twenty-five, thirty years ago. Some of his old friends were picking up and moving away from the Bronx, moving out to the Island or up to Westchester. They wanted to settle down and raise their families where it was safe, they said.
Rocky thought they were a bunch of pansies and told them so. He informed them that they could try all they wanted to shield themselves from the bad stuff, but the bad stuff would find them if that was their fate.
“I hate to break it to you,” he said, “but the bad stuff can still walk right through your fancy front door if it wants to.”
Yeah, the bad stuff will get you, no matter what, if your number is up. Rocky truly believed that. Still does. Happens all the time.
He thinks of Kristina and Marianne, probably convinced they were safe in their own apartments, and of all those people who died because they went to work on a Tuesday morning.
Jesus. If he were a different kind of guy—the kind who lets things bother him—he’d be so depressed right now he’d want to crawl into bed and stay there for a year.
But that’s not me. I gotta do something. Whatever I can.
He’ll leave the terrorist hunting up to Vic, but he’s going to find this Nightwatcher son of a bitch and put him away for a good long time.
“I need an eggplant parm hero for my friend out there,” he tells Richie, “and what’ve you got for me?”
“Whatever you want. You’re my first customer since I reopened. Where the hell is everybody?”
“Give ’em time, Richie. They’ll come back. People are rattled.”
“You been down on the pile?” Richie asks, turning away to pour Rocky an extra large cup of coffee without asking.
“I was, but then I got pulled off for a case.”
“You mean a homicide?” Richie shakes his head. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Rocky shrugs. “Life goes on.”
“You mean death goes on.”
Rocky accepts the coffee and takes out his wallet.
“Put that away. It’s on me,” Richie tells him. “Sandwiches, too. What’ll it be, besides the eggplant?”
Rocky thinks of the stuffed pork chop dinner Ange has waiting back at home. God only knows when he’ll be able to eat it.
“Thanks, Richie. I’ll take a Sicilian.”
“You got it. Extra cappy, right?”
“You bet.”
Rocky’s phone rings as he’s sipping his coffee and watching Richie layer a nice thick pile of thin-sliced capicola on an open hero roll.
He steps away from the counter to answer it. “Yeah, Manzillo here.”
“I got something for you,” Vic tells him. “Ready?”
“Yeah, yeah, just gimme a sec.” Rocky sets his coffee on the counter. His notebook is out in the car. He grabs a pen that’s sitting by the cash register and a napkin to write on. “What’cha got?”
“Dale Reiss. He and his wife are staying with the wife’s sister in Jersey City.”
“You sure? How do you know?” Stupid question, but Rocky can’t help asking it.
“I know, okay? The sister’s name is Jacky McCann. I’ll give you the number.”
Rocky jots it down. “Got anything on Jerry yet?”
“Not yet. I’ll get back to you when I do.”
“Thanks, Vic. I—”
“Owe me. Yeah. I know.”
Rocky can’t resist busting his chops. “I was gonna say I gotta go—my sandwich is ready. I’m down at Di Bernarducci’s on Broome.”
“Smart ass.”
“You know it.”
“Good luck, Rock.”
A few minutes later, Rocky steps out onto the street with the sandwiches, two coffees, a pack of Newports, his cell phone, and the napkin with the phone number scribbled on it.
Brandewyne is lounging near the car, smoking.
“You want to help me out here?” he calls. “I kinda got my hands full, and we need to get moving. We just got a break.”
“You mean besides the deli being open?” She stubs out her cigarette and reaches for the two coffees.
He fills her in quickly and takes a bite of the sandwich—extra cappy and extra roasted red peppers, just the way he likes it—before brushing the crumbs from his hands and dialing the number Vic gave him, glad things are finally starting to look up.
Mack takes a long last drag on his cigarette as he rounds the corner onto his block, sucking the smoke deeply into his lungs. He holds it there as he tosses the butt onto the sidewalk and stops walking to grind it out with his heel.
Damn, that’s good. Too good.
Having chain-smoked his way through a good portion of the pack he bought at the newsstand up by the park, he was planning to throw away the rest.
But why? Why not just take up the habit again? He only quit for Carrie. Exhaling tobacco into the damp night air, he’s struck by the dismal irony that she might very well have died of smoke inhalation—and that might have been the most merciful way to go, given the alternatives.
But maybe she was blown up in the initial explosion, or maybe she was burned alive before the fumes could smother her. Maybe she was one of the people who made the agonizing choice to jump from the tower. Maybe she crawled outside to a ledge, desperate for air, and fell. Or maybe she clung to life in that torture chamber until the collapse crushed her body.
Walking on toward his building, Mack reaches into his pocket and takes out his keys. Carrie’s gold wedding band dangles from the keychain; he fastened it there for safekeep
ing, uncertain what else to do with it for now.
It wouldn’t feel right to wear it around his neck on a chain, as his father wore his mother’s at first. Last month, the nursing home staff suggested that Lynn take it back, lest Dad lose it or have it stolen while he’s in the throes of dementia.
Picturing his once-robust father trickling drool and wasting away in a wheelchair, Mack wonders if there’s any merciful way to exit this world.
If there is, he sure as hell hasn’t seen it.
He trudges up the steps and is about to unlock the front door when it’s thrown open in front of him. Something—someone, a female someone, seemingly running for her life—barrels into him full force.
Mack teeters, almost falling backward off the stoop.
“Mack! Oh God, call 911! Hurry!”
The last time Emily was awakened by a ringing phone in the middle of the night, it was the emergency room calling to say that her father-in-law had been in a fatal accident. Mowed down by a bus as he exited his favorite cocktail lounge, old Morty Reiss was feeling no pain and probably never knew what hit him. But for a long time after that wee-hour call, Emily’s heart started pounding whenever the phone rang, at any time of day.
Now it’s past midnight, and the phone isn’t even her own. It’s her sister’s, and Emily’s first thought is that something must have happened to one of their parents down in Boca.
The phone rings twice and then stops. Either the caller hung up, or Jacky answered in the next room.
Dale, sleeping beside her on the futon, doesn’t stir as Emily slips out of bed and leaves the room. In the hall, lit by the dim bulb of a nightlight low on the wall, she finds her sister just leaving her own room, talking on the phone in a hushed voice.
“Hang on,” Jacky tells the caller, “my sister is right here.” She passes the phone to Emily.
“For me? Who is it?”
Jacky just shakes her head, wearing a cryptic expression.
“Hello?” Emily walks with the phone toward the living room. Jacky follows and turns on a light.
“Mrs. Reiss, this is Detective Rocco Manzillo with the NYPD. I’m trying to reach your husband.”
“Is . . . is everything all right?” Emily asks, but of course it isn’t. The NYPD doesn’t call in the middle of the night if everything is all right.
“I’m investigating a pair of murders over the past couple of days . . .”
Murders . . . Dale?
Confused, her thoughts whirling with impossibilities, Emily sinks onto the nearest chair.
“Both murders took place in two different buildings owned by your husband.”
“You’re not thinking . . .” Emily shakes her head rapidly.
Of course not. No one could possibly think Dale killed anyone.
“I’m trying to locate a handyman who works in both buildings. I have a tenant—a witness—who placed him at the scene of the first murder, and we need to question him.”
Jerry wouldn’t hurt a fly is her first thought.
But then she considers that he was the victim of a brutal crime years ago. She’s watched enough episodes of Dateline and 20/20 to know that violent offenders are initially often victims themselves.
“Mrs. Reiss?” Detective Manzillo prods, “I need his last name, and an address, and I also need—”
“I wish I could tell you,” she cuts in, “but I don’t know either of those things, and I’m positive my husband doesn’t, either, because I asked him about it just tonight.”
“Tonight? Why is that?” he asks sharply.
“Just because I was worried about Jerry, and I thought we should call to make sure he’s okay. He’s . . . mentally impaired. I’m not sure if you know that.”
“I did. How well do you know him, Mrs. Reiss?”
“Not very well.” Her head is spinning. “I volunteer for the soup kitchen in his old neighborhood, down in Brooklyn. He moved to Manhattan a few years ago, but—”
“Hold on, back up. Where in Brooklyn? Tell me the old address.”
“I don’t have the address. But maybe someone who works at the soup kitchen can—”
“Names,” the detective cuts in brusquely. “I need names, Mrs. Reiss. Someone I can talk to.”
“Diana Wade,” she tells him. “She’s the director of the soup kitchen. She’s been there longer than I have.”
“Do you have a phone number for her?”
“I have it in my cell phone, but it’s dead, and I can’t charge it until I get a charger. I’m sure I have it written down someplace back at my apartment, but . . .”
“Diana Wade,” he murmurs, and she can tell he’s taking notes. “W-A-D-E, right? Is she married? Or would she be listed under her own name?”
“She’s never been married. She lives alone.”
“Where?”
“Someplace off Gramercy Park, I think. I’m not—”
“I’ll find her. I also need your husband’s cooperation in accessing the video surveillance footage of the public hallways. Can you please put him on the phone?”
“Hang on a minute.” Emily lowers the phone and hurries past Jacky, heading for the guest room.
“Wait, what’s going on?” Her sister trails her. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” Emily says simply, and goes in to wake Dale.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Mack keeps asking, but Allison can’t catch her breath to explain.
She still can’t believe what just happened. If she hadn’t noticed the flashing light and paused to check her messages before walking into the bedroom; if she hadn’t picked up that bookend . . .
She looks over her shoulder into the dark vestibule of the building, expecting to see someone coming after her. Tugging Mack’s arm, she pulls him down the steps with her, away from the door.
“Allison, what—”
“Just call 911,” she repeats, dragging him along the sidewalk. Still panting from three flights of stairs, she darts a glance up at her fourth floor windows. “Please. And we have to get away from here, it’s not safe. “
Mack reaches into the pocket of his blue jacket, pulls out his cell phone.
She nods and stops walking, pressing a hand against her sternum as her heart seems to smash rhythmically against it, trying to escape.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay. I was just . . .”
Scared. She was scared. Terrified. Still is.
But even now, she can’t bring herself to say it aloud.
“Someone was in my apartment. Please call the police.”
“I am, I’m calling, just tell me quickly first, what happened?”
“I came home, and he was there. I saw him before he could—I threw something heavy at him—I think I hurt him, because I heard him go down, but . . . I don’t know, I just ran.”
“Did you get a look at him?”
“No. I just ran,” she says again.
Mack nods and for the second time since they met, she watches him punch three numbers into his telephone keypad: 911.
Diana Wade is remarkably good-natured for someone who was awakened fifteen minutes ago by a phone call from the NYPD in the dead of night. She greets Rocky and Brandewyne at the door wearing a housecoat and a warm smile, but her dogs—a toy poodle and two Chihuahuas—aren’t nearly as welcoming.
“Oh, hush, everyone,” she tells them above mad barking. “Come in, Detectives.”
Rocky steps into the busiest apartment he’s ever seen. It’s packed with furniture, and every flat surface is covered with stacks of mail, magazines, books—thrillers, mostly—along with evidence of myriad hobbies and relics of devout Irish Catholicism.
She moves a stack of newspapers from a sofa and gestures for them to sit.
They do, wanting to relax her, though they’re p
ressed for time. They’re meeting Dale Reiss in about a half hour downtown.
“Would you like some tea?” Diana Wade asks with a trace of brogue. “I can turn on the kettle and it will be ready in a flash.”
Brandewyne shakes her head. “No, thank you.” What she wants, Rocky knows, is a cigarette. He can tell by the way she’s holding a pen between her index and middle fingers.
“We just have a few questions for you, Ms. Wade,” Rocky tells her, “and then we’ll let you go back to sleep. Again, I’m sorry we had to wake you up.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble. What can I do for you?” Diana sits on a chair across from the sofa. The canine crew settles at her feet, three sets of puppy dog eyes warily fixed on the visitors. Their mistress looks to be in her early sixties and barely tops five feet, but more than likely surpasses two hundred pounds.
For all her warmth, she’s got a no-nonsense aura about her, courtesy of her past occupations as a nanny and schoolteacher, and now running a soup kitchen in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
“Emily Reiss said that we should speak to you about a man we’re trying to find,” Rocky tells her as Brandewyne opens a notebook and switches the pen’s position, ready to write with it.
“So you said on the phone. Who is the man?”
“His name is Jerry—I don’t know his last name—but he and his mother used to live in the neighborhood.”
“Jerry Thompson?”
Rocky looks at Brandewyne and shrugs. “He would be in his early to mid twenties, stocky build . . .”
“Mentally handicapped,” Brandewyne puts in.
“That’s Jerry Thompson.”
Thompson—it would have to be a relatively common last name, wouldn’t it? Why couldn’t it be something like Di Bernarducci?
“Poor thing was sharp as a tack before his injury, you know,” Diana is saying, and Rocky snaps back to attention.
“Injury. What happened to him?” Brandewyne scribbles something in her tablet.
“His twin sister bashed his head in with a cast-iron skillet, that’s what happened.”
Rocky’s eyes widen. Brandewyne’s head jerks up and she meets his startled gaze with raised eyebrows.
“When was this?” he asks Diana Wade.
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