“She is safe,” I said.
Thomas spat back, “I’ve got rights!”
“No kidding?” I said. “Now all you need is some common sense.”
Thomas left his place on the wall, stepped around Seldeen, and strutted down the corridor in hopes of finding Adrienne’s room. We watched him go from door to door. “Ever read any Charles Dickens?” I said.
Seldeen said, “No.”
“A Christmas Carol notwithstanding,” I said, “you can’t beat Dickens for unredeemable.”
“You need me here?” Adam said.
I turned back to him and said, “Where you off to?”
“Anywhere,” he said. “Everywhere. The street.”
I sharpened my focus on him. “You still a cop?” I said.
He had to think about it before he said, “I don’t know.” He started toward the elevator.
“I think I’m going to lose this fight,” I said.
He spun around and continued walking backwards. “Even so,” he said, “fight it. And fight dirty.” He turned again and kept going. I could no longer predict what he might think or do.
Reed Thomas must have found Adrienne’s room. The corridor was empty.
Adrienne was sitting up in bed. Where she was ordinarily robust and vibrant, she remained unhinged, diminished. Reed Thomas worked the floor at the foot of her bed. He was forcing his argument, trying to make his case, I supposed, before I got into the room. “She’ll be two thousand miles away,” he said. “She’ll be safer than she is here.”
“Where is she?” said Adrienne. They both turned and acknowledged my presence in the room. “And who slugged you?” she added.
I rubbed my left cheek. It had swelled. “Your former husband,” I said.
Adrienne gutted Reed Thomas with a swift cut of her eyes.
On cue, Reed Thomas approached me and extended his hand. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “I over reacted.” I looked at his extended hand and nodded. He retracted it soon enough.
Where’s Grace? said Adrienne. My low grade nod now added up to something for her. I was working against the fact that I had no legal standing. She asked, “Is she all right?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What’s happened?” she said.
I said, “Mulcahy and his wife were gunned down protecting her.”
“They got past Mulcahy?” she said. This was an unheard-of proposition.
“Five to one,” I said. “He nearly got them all.”
“So much for your inviolate code,” she said, “of not daring to enter such sanctified ground.”
There was nothing I could say to that. My confidence in such a code had let us all down.
“You’re sure Grace is safe?” Adrienne asked.
I said, “At the moment.”
“Reed wants to take her back to Virginia,” she said.
“I got that,” I said. “Are we going to repeat some very bad history?”
“You should come too,” said Reed. This stopped the room.
Adrienne studied him for an indication of what he fully meant by such a statement. “I leave now,” she said, “it’ll be like abandoning Allison all over again.”
“These people are monsters,” he said. I couldn’t argue with that. He continued, “How many places have you tried to hide her?” Adrienne had no answer. He was almost ranting now. “They’ve gotten to her every time,” he bellowed. Reed Thomas was doing a good job of maximizing what little he actually knew.
Adrienne spun on me. “My mother’s dead,” she said, “isn’t she?”
Hesitation and then minimal nodding on my part.
“How?” she asked.
I had a decision to make. “”How do you think? I said.
“A bullet?” she said. Hopeful. I let that hang there without touching it. Her turn to nod. “At least it was quick,” she said. “I can’t tell you what has gone through my mind.”
No one in the room had been free of vivid imagination.
“She was a decent, good woman,” said Thomas.
“She was what she was,” said Adrienne.
Reed clenched his jaw on an audible inhalation.
“The last thing they did to you,” I said, “was make like they had harvested a kidney. What happened the first three days?”
“I was held in what was probably a middle room,” said Adrienne, “in a mobile home or a trailer.”
“Why do you say a middle room?” I asked.
“One window,” she said, “on an outside wall that had bars on it.”
“Hear anything?” I said.
Adrienne said, “Dogs.”
“What about the surgery?” I said.
“They shot me up,” she said, “with something in the jugular.”
“You weren’t taken anywhere?” I said.
“I vaguely remember the stone bench,” she said, “outside the Kiam building.”
“They could have opened you up right there in that mobile unit room,” I said.
“I should be dead,” said Adrienne. “Like Allison.”
“You’re in no condition to care for a child,” said Thomas.
Adrienne said, “Back off, Reed! I’m not ready to do that again with you.” Thomas held up his hands, chastened. “I’m not saying no,” she continued, summoning patience. “I’m just not ready.” He reiterated with a repositioning of his raised hands, palms forward. “Whatever happens now,” she went on, “has got to be about Grace.” She had turned back to me. I remained still. “I’m trying not to be stupid,” she offered, in acknowledgement of what she knew I was thinking. I figured my remaining still was best for the moment. She said, “But I don’t know what to do.”
I said, “Trust me.”
“Trust me!” said Thomas.
I had to laugh, I tried to pull it and it ended up a snorted interjection.
“Where are the police in this?” said Adrienne.
I said, “They’ve got a huge funeral planned for Dennis and Catherine Mulcahy tomorrow.”
“Aren’t they doing anything?” she said.
“I assume they are,” I said. “I expect they’ll be all over me very soon.”
“Why?” she asked.
I said, “I’m surprised they haven’t hauled me in yet.”
She repeated herself, with a push. “Why?”
“I’m certainly not depending upon them,” I said.
“You’re not answering me, P.I.,” she said, losing patience.
“I discovered Mulcahy and his wife,” I said.
She said, “What about Grace?”
“Unharmed,” I said. “She’s safe.”
“Well, I’m not above going to the Police,” said Reed Thomas, “and telling them what you’ve just revealed.”
“You are not helping yourself,” said Adrienne.
“Even you wouldn’t have a chance in front of a judge,” he said. This surprised Adrienne. “Look at the condition you’re in?” he said, gesturing toward her with his hand. “And Mitchell here is working outside the law.”
I said, “Are you really willing to trust Grace’s safety to the bureaucracy of Child Protective Services?”
“Yes,” said Thomas.
Adrienne said, “Well I am not!”
“I can win this,” he said. “in any court of law. It would just be a matter of time.”
“Right,” I said. “Go for it. Because that road would eat up nothing but time and keep you out of the way in the interim.”
“I’ll do it if I have to,” he said.
“I can do a lot with an interim,” I said.
“As evidenced by what you’ve accomplished so far?” he said.
“She’s safe,” I said. “That’s what’s happened so far.”
Adrienne said, “How soon can I get out of here?”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Thomas.
I took my time before I spoke. “He actually might be right there,” I said.
Adrienne fell back against her b
ank of pillows. I am not sure I had ever seen her look so conflicted. A wave of something rolled through her. It nearly caused her to levitate. “I’m going to do the unthinkable,” she said. This was given to the window, not to either of us standing by the bed. A reconciled, dull tone had taken control of Adrienne’s voice. “I want Reed to take her back to Virginia,” she said, “as soon as possible.”
“God bless you,” said Thomas. I wanted to strangle the man. Though I refrained. Adrienne wouldn’t look at me. “It’s best this way,” he said. Adrienne refused to look at me some more. Reed Thomas stated, without equivocation, “It’s the right thing to do.”
“You need to shut up,” I said. “Now.”
Was I going to be able to hand Grace over? The inevitability that I was going to have to descended. It felt like a laceration. Someone, somewhere, shouted No! Though it was only I who heard it.
Twenty
Sister Althea Morgan Pierce’s front stoop was thick with what assumption would characterize as thugs. Baseball caps on backwards or askew. Oversized trousers belted below the butt. Designer underwear on display. The porch could not actually contain them all, so they spilled onto her very small patch of front lawn lined with boulders painted white. In addition, the overgrown lot across the street was well populated with those on upturned milk crates, resin lawn chairs, as well as those standing around an kettle barbeque that had seen better days.
I had dispensed with the back alley and pulled up to the curb in front. When I got out of the Chrysler and headed toward her front door, I was met with a synchronized presentation of arms that came out of everywhere, waistbands, boots, back holsters, shirt sleeves. Those across the street were also well armed and in firing positions out in the open not unlike the fully exposed fire and load lines of revolutionary soldiers. I made sure my hands were visible. “Easy, guys,” I said. “I am not him.”
They held steady on me until Althea opened her front door a crack and ordered them to stand down. I moved through them under collective weary eyes and assumed that the back of the house was equally as fortified.
Inside, Grace was down for a nap in the bed in which I had recuperated from gunshot wounds sometime before. She looked remarkably unaffected by the events that had closed around her.
Althea said, “Are you sure about this, Theodore?”
“It’s only a matter of time,” I said, “before the authorities force the issue and remove her to protective custody.”
“You’ll be sending this child across a state line,” she said. “They could crucify you.”
“It’s not about me,” I said. “Plus, Thomas is the child’s grandfather. He has the permission of her grandmother who has legal custody.”
“Look how she sleeps,” said Althea. “She is at home here. She feels secure.”
“If it were up to me,” I said.
Althea said, “Of course.”
“Let me pay you,” I said.
“In good time,” said Sister Pierce. “Get her on the plane. Tell her grandfather that he will answer without mercy for anything bad that happens to this child.”
“You and me both,” I said.
“There is a higher authority now involved,” said Althea. She left me to wake Grace while she gathered her things.
Reed Thomas had booked two first class seats on an early evening flight out of Intercontinental. Adrienne’s goodbye was stunning in the cold distancing she had adopted from Grace. A defensive measure, to be sure. She wouldn’t even hold her. I was directed to surrender her immediately into Reed Thomas’s arms. Grace was confused. There was no instant simpatico between them. Adrienne asked that we leave quickly after making it very clear to Thomas that this was a temporary situation. She intended to retrieve Grace again as soon as she was able. He agreed with magnanimity. Too much, I thought. Too forthcoming.
I twisted in the wind without broadcasting the condition. I hoped.
At the airport, Reed Thomas objected to my parking the car without first having consulted him, followed by my preparing to escort him directly to the security check point. “You could have just dropped us at the curb,” he said.
“You don’t get it,” I said. “You are exposed here. Grace is exposed. The security check point inside will be a nominal up-tick to protect you, but not much.”
“I am confident that we will be all right,” he said.
“Your confidence is not impressive,” I said. I grabbed the bag for Grace out of the trunk, as well as the small signatured bag Thomas had traveled with, further evidence that he had counted on a quick turn around to his trip down from Virginia. He carried Grace.
I understood Adrienne’s emotional distance back at the hospital. I did not want to shut the child out while she was still in my presence, but neither did I want a dramatic goodbye. I set the pace toward the terminal.
Reed Thomas hustled to keep up. Grace had become inured to quickly changing scenery.
“A two thousand mile end run out of state is nothing to the people we are dealing with,” I said. “They’ve got a seamless network spread out over the entire continent, with legs on the ground on all the other continents. Capice?” This appeared to have sobered him a bit. “I’ll get you to security,” I continued. “We’ll all pray after that. Is there any kind of protection service you can engage in Virginia?”
He said, “The police.”
“Right,” I said. “So, you know no one.”
“You mean someone like you?” he said.
“That’d be a start,” I said. “I’m going to make a few calls, cash in a few chips. You can’t do this alone.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I will alert you to what, if anything, I can arrange. You need a strong defensive line.”
“I could hire a security company,” he said.
“That would surround you with a lot of retired cops,” I said. “Adrienne may have some connections to people in her discipline.”
“If what you say is true,” said Thomas, “why would I want to draw that kind of attention to Grace?”
I said, “Up until now, these animals have toyed with Grace as a way of sending messages to me, Adrienne, the police, the Feds, the world at large. If they’d wanted Grace, you wouldn’t be holding her right now. If they should decide to want her they will have her. Your standing in their way would offer the push-back of a gnat.”
He said, “I know how to take care of myself.”
“I’m not the least bit concerned with you,” I said.
The automatic doors to the terminal slid open and we went inside where the sound level immediately shot up and the density of human beings milling about increased to my discomfort. We had to stop by a kiosk to check in and print out Boarding Passes. My eyes never came to a complete stop on anything.
I had to leave them at the maze of chrome stanchions leading to security personnel and X-ray equipment. I handed off the bags to Thomas and briefly caressed the perfection of Grace’s face. She smiled at me. In another context, the sudden, overwhelming pain I felt in the center of my chest would have had me thinking fatal heart attack. I waited until they shuffled behind everybody else up to the conveyor tables, and then until they were waved through the X-ray portal. Grace never took her eyes off of me. She was confused. What was left of my heart imploded. I was certain I would never see her again.
Twenty-one
I would not have been admitted to the Mulcahy Funeral were it not for accompanying Adam Seldeen, who was no longer Officer Aditya Seldeen, the rather elegant man from India everybody knew and recognized. He was the proverbial shell of the man he had once been. Ever, now, in a rabid state of single-minded shock. I guess the proper term would be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD. While his superiors in the Department had insisted he take leave-time after the bug-out of his family and the execution styled homicide of his law enforcement partner, where was their insistence that he seek and receive professional counseling help? Perhaps they h
ad and he had managed to shun it. The most noticeable thing, even from a distance, was that he no longer took any interest in his appearance. Where once Adam was professionally fastidious about the crispness of his shirt, the knife-edged perfection of the crease in his slacks, and the razor-cut shape and volume of his troubadour’s head of thick black hair, he continued in the realm of the unkempt.
Without wanting to be a mother hen, I offered him a fresh razor, an aerosol of shaving cream, a clean towel, and suggested that before we departed for the service, he might want to go in and take a shave. I had hoped his being that close to an unused bar of soap and the shower in the claw-footed tub, he’d get the idea that ten minutes under a steaming hot jet of water might be the ticket. The shave was as good as it got.
The Mulcahys had not been religious. No one knew of any church affiliation. However, the production that was going to be their funeral was of a size that required a venue larger than most of the vaunted edifices of downtown could accommodate. We had to join the highway-parking-lot-like traffic jam on 59, where we crawled toward The Church of Reconciliation just off Newcastle. That particular place had been a world I’d had to submerge myself in on a prior murder case that nearly brought the Mega Church to ruin. It was fashioned in gilt and high tech media from what once had been a basketball arena. Though it had almost fallen on the shock and awe of sexual scandal, it was making its way back thanks to the unwavering support of a moderate base.
There were legions who where not going to be able to get a seat inside. The audio portion of the service was to be broadcast via speakers outside in the huge courtyard cum reflective garden between the main building and its multi-storied parking garage.
As I had anticipated, the concentration of law enforcement professionals from near and far promised to leave the city of Houston with rather anemic Police protection for a good portion of the day. Media were everywhere, and under the recorded scrutiny of public grief, in the face of such a heinous deed, no one wanted to be characterized inattentive.
More tribute than religious ceremony, the cavalcade of speakers included family, colleagues, superiors, and politicians. The Mulcahys had two grown children, son and daughter, both of whom had children of their own. The son eulogized his father, and the daughter eulogized her mother. It was clear they each had the grit to put a public face on their deeply felt grief. It was the most moving part of the Memorial, as each had to fight to keep his and her emotions in check in order to get the job done.
Spare Parts: A Ted Mitchell Detective Novel (Ted Mitchell Detective Novels Book 4) Page 15