Where was Will?
She didn’t see him. She remembered him standing in the center of the room holding a tray when she answered the phone. She remembered the wild look in his eyes as he listened to that insane ringing. Like a cornered animal. Where was he now?
She glanced down and saw a tray of pigs in blankets cooling on the coffee table.
She heard tires screech outside. Through the picture window she saw Will’s old Chevy roar away down the street.
TEN
Manhattan
1
Detective Sergeant Renny Augustino found a note on his desk that the chief wanted to see him right away. He didn’t have anything better to do at the moment so he headed for Mooney’s office.
Renny dropped into one of the chairs opposite Mooney’s puke green desk. A tiny plaster Christmas tree—a product of Mrs. Mooney’s ceramics class—sat atop one of the filing cabinets, its lights twinkling chaotically.
“What up, Lieu?”
Midtown North’s chief of detectives, Lieutenant James Mooney, a jowly, fiftyish bulldog, looked up from a paper he was holding in both hands. The fluorescent ceiling lights reflected off his balding scalp.
“Got a message from the PC, Augustino,” he said in his whiny voice. “He wants you on his new task force to get that serial killer.”
“You sure you got the right?”
Mooney smiled. He didn’t do that often.
“Yeah I’m sure. Because I checked to make sure myself.”
Renny was shocked. The Police Commissioner wanted him?
“We’ll, ain’t that a kick in the head.”
“It’s your chance, Renny. Handle yourself right with this one and you can get yourself back on track.”
Renny looked at Mooney and saw that the chief genuinely wished him well. That gave his opinion of Mooney a slow turn. He hadn’t liked the man much; he was competent but had struck Renny as too concerned with paperwork. He didn’t inspire his detectives. His men had to be self-starters if they were going to be anything better than paper-shufflers. Fortunately Midtown North had a fair number of self-starters. But maybe he’d been too hard on Mooney. Maybe because he resented anyone with a detective lieutenant’s badge, something Renny should have had long ago.
“Yeah,” Renny said, rising and extending his hand. “Maybe I can. Thanks, Lieu.”
Mooney shook his hand and passed him his papers.
“They want you down at Police Plaza at one sharp. Try not to be late.”
Back in the squad room, the other detectives congratulated him as he passed through. Sam Lang, dressed in green corduroy wrinkles, was waiting at Renny’s desk, a coffee cup in his left hand, his right thrust out in front of him.
“Some Christmas present, ay, partner?”
“What is this?” Renny said, shaking Sam’s hand. “Am I the only guy in the joint who didn’t know about it?”
“Maybe if you weren’t late all the time you’d be au courant.”
Renny glared at him. He hated when people threw in foreign expressions—unless they were in Italian. Then it was okay.
“I got one question, Sam. Why me?”
“Because you’re tenacious.”
Renny peered suspiciously at his partner over the top of his reading glasses.
“‘Tenacious’ … ‘au courant’ … you been dipping into How To Increase Your Word Power again?”
“Let me put it another way,” Sam said with mild annoyance. “You’re a fucking bulldog when you get started on something.”
“And how would the PC know that?”
“Everybody knows that.”
“Would’ve been nice if he’d asked me if I wanted the job first.”
“You mean you don’t?”
“I don’t know, Sam.”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you? This is high profile.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t no kid. I’m thinking of winding down.”
“I know, I know, but what a way to go out.”
“Or go down. The whole thing could turn out to be another nightmare.”
Just like the Danny Gordon case, Renny thought.
And now another loon on the loose. The mayor and the police commissioner had been making a big deal out of forming this new hot-shot task force to hunt him down.
But what if they failed again? What if Renny got himself wrapped up in this case and they never found the killer?
He couldn’t go through something like that again. Not being able to resolve the Gordon case had torn him apart. Even now, all these years later, not a day went by that he didn’t think about that kid—or his killer.
Sam swallowed a slug of coffee. “You’re not going to turn them down, are you?”
Renny managed a smile. “Course not. Just ’cause I’m crazy doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
“Good. You had me going there for a while.”
Potts walked up then, a glossy sheet of paper in his hand.
“Fax for you, Sarge.”
Sam laughed. “Probably the mayor.”
“No. From Southern Bell. Something about—”
Renny felt lightning jolt down his arms. They reached toward Potts on their own.
“Give me that.”
He grabbed the sheet and scanned through it.
Another one of those calls. And in the same town as the last time—Pendleton, North Carolina. That bulletin he’d put out years ago—to watch for reports of a certain kind of prank call: a strange ring, a child screaming for help. Like Nick had said—still in the computer.
Bless you, whoever had left it there.
“This is it! Son of a bitch, this is him! It’s Ryan! He’s in North Carolina—Pendleton, North Carolina.”
“Who?” Potts said. “And where’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Renny said as he slipped into his suit coat. “But I’m going to learn a lot about the place real quick.”
Sam stared at him. “You’re not heading for the library now, are you?”
“Yeah. I’m going to find a book or two on Pendleton to read on the plane. Not going to waste a minute this time.”
Sam’s face went slack. He dismissed Potts with a wave. His voice became a tense whisper.
“Plane? What do you mean, plane?”
“Going down there. Have to practice mah drawl. Noath KehLAHnah— that sound like I’m from the South?”
“Yeah. South Bronx. Look, buddy boy—are you out of your fucking mind? You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Renny had difficulty meeting Sam’s troubled eyes. “I’ve got to go, Sam. You know that.”
“I don’t know no such thing! What the hell we just been talking about? You could get a lieutenant’s badge out of the task force and retire an officer.”
“That just became a sucker bet.” Renny straightened the papers on his desk into two neat piles in no particular order and pushed his chair into the kneehole. “Because I feel the flu coming on and it’s going to be a bad case. As a matter of fact, I’m feeling feverish already.”
Sam’s face broke into a sickly grin. “You’re putting me on, aren’t you? That’s it, isn’t it? Another one of your put-ons.”
“Look at this face,” Renny said, knowing he must look pretty damn grim. “Is this the face of someone who’s kidding?”
“Jesus, Renny! The PC just asked for you personally. You can’t walk out now!”
“The Danny Gordon case takes precedence, Sam. You know that.” He could feel the heat rising in him. “I’ve been after this fucker forever and I’m no closer now than when I started. Christ, you know what this thing has cost me! Now I get my first solid lead in God knows how long and you think I’m going to file it for later? No way, Sam! No fucking way!”
And that was enough of that. Renny was out of there into the cold, late-morning grayness before Sam could try to lay any more common sense on him. He hurried down the subway steps and hopped the near-empty F train that was just pulling in. Thoughts of Danny Gordon hovered around him and
hounded him all the way to Queens.
2
When he reached his stop and climbed back up to street level, he saw that the clouds had lowered. Snowflakes swirled among the tiny droplets that sprinkled his face. Sleet. He had no raincoat or umbrella, but he didn’t mind. Besides, the grim weather perfectly matched his mood.
He lit a cigarette and quick-walked the two blocks to his secondfloor apartment. He packed quickly, throwing a few clean shirts, his spare suit, a couple of pairs of twill slacks, and some toiletries into a battered old Samsonite suitcase. Then he dumped his drawer of socks and underwear on top of everything. He removed his shoulder holster and Smith & Wesson .38 and laid that in among the jockey shorts. Then he grabbed his raincoat and headed back down the stairs. He wanted to fly but he’d have to drive. Too much paperwork involved in getting a permit to bring a gun along on a plane, even if he was a cop and it was in checked baggage.
And he wanted a weapon along.
But before anything else, he had to make a little detour.
Outside, the mix had turned to pure snow. He pulled up his collar and walked south a few blocks, then east until he came to an old boarded-up building. As the snowflakes sifted through his thinning hair and melted on his scalp, he stood and stared up at the facade. The sign to the left of the door was still visible:
ST. FRANCIS HOME FOR BOYS
Not the first time he’d stood before the place where Danny Gordon had lived. He came here regularly to renew a vow he’d made here years ago.
It had been snowing then too.
Danny Gordon was dead. Even though his body had never been found, Renny had no doubt the priest had killed him. Ryan couldn’t hide and travel with a child injured like that. No. He’d finished what he’d begun, and then he’d faded away. A perfect disappearing act
Until now. After all these years, a lead had finally surfaced. Renny would follow it to the ends of the earth.
For Danny.
I don’t know where you are, kid, but I know you’re dead. But just because you’ve got no folks, no family, don’t think there’s no one alive who cares about what happened to you. There is.
Me.
And I’m going to get the guy who did it. That’s Renaldo Augustino’s promise.
He turned and walked away through the falling snow toward the subway station, whispering another promise to someone else.
And when I find you, Father Bill Ryan, I’ll bring you in … but not before I give you a taste of what you did to that poor kid.
ELEVEN
North Carolina
Rafe had been right about the stealing. It did get easier. It became so against her will.
With each little theft, Lisl had clung to the guilt, squeezed each incident for whatever remorse she could wring from it, but despite her best efforts the guilt dwindled, the remorse became brittle and desiccated to the point where it crumbled into a fine powder that ran through her fingers like sand.
She had changed. She saw so many things in a new perspective now. Her parents, for instance …
She had gone home for Christmas. No way out of that. She hadn’t wanted to leave Rafe but his own family had been tugging at him as well, so they separated for the holiday. What a nightmare.
And what an eye-opener. She had never realized before how empty her parents were. How shallow, how narcissistic. After she arrived they practically ignored her. All they seemed truly interested in was themselves. They’d wanted her home for the holidays, not out of any genuine desire for her company, but because having your only child home for Christmas was the way it should be. No real concern or interest in anything beyond their front door, except perhaps how they appeared to others.
The memory of Christmas night dinner was still fresh in her mind, how she had sat there and listened to them talk. All the pettiness, bitterness, jealousy disguised as wit. The subtle put-downs as they questioned her about how far she wanted to pursue this career thing; about remarrying and giving them grandchildren so they could keep up with their old friends the Andersons who now had three. She’d never seen it before, but these few months with Rafe had opened her eyes.
Depressing. And infuriating.
Lisl asked herself what these two people had ever really done for her as parents. They had fed her, clothed her, put a roof over her head—and she supposed there was something to be said for those benefits since not all parents did even that much for their children—but beyond the necessities of life, what had they given her? What had they passed on to her?
She’d realized with a shock that her life had no center. She’d been raised and sent out into the world without a compass. And unless she did something on her own to remedy that, she would remain emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually adrift.
The day after Christmas she had fled back to Pendleton. She’d been overjoyed to find Rafe waiting for her.
“All right,” Rafe said now as they stood on the sidewalk down the street from Ball’s Jewelry. They’d just completed their twenty-second shoplifting spree. “Who is the lucky passer-by to receive our largesse?”
Lisl scanned the faces of the post-Christmas shoppers and gift-returners as they flowed past. Then she glanced down at the gold butterfly pin in her hand, lifted from a counter in Ball’s only moments before. She was enchanted by the delicate filigree of its wings.
“No one.”
Rafe turned to her, his eyebrows raised. “Oh?”
“I like this. I think I’ll keep it.”
The words shocked her. They seemed to have taken on a life of their own and escaped independent of her will. But she spoke the truth. She did want to keep this pin.
A slow smile spread across Rafe’s face.
“No guilt? No remorse?”
Lisl searched within herself. No. She could find no guilt. The thefts had become routine, actually. More of a chore—an errand, almost—than anything else.
“No,” she said, shaking her head and looking down at the gold butterfly. “And that frightens me.”
“Don’t be frightened.”
Rafe took the pin from her, opened her coat, and pinned it on her sweater.
“Why not?”
“Because this is a watershed, a cause for celebration.”
“I feel like I’ve developed a callus on my soul.”
“You’ve done nothing of the sort. That’s the kind of thinking that holds you back. Negative imagery. It’s not a matter of calluses. It’s breaking free from your childhood shackles.”
“I don’t feel free.”
“Because only one of those chains has fallen away. More remain. Many more.”
“I don’t know if I want to hear this.”
“Trust me.”
Rafe took her arm and they began walking along Conway Street.
“Up till now, we’ve been engaging in faceless acts of liberation.”
“Faceless? What’s been faceless? There’ve been plenty of faces involved here.”
“Not really. We’ve been stealing from stores. Faceless corporations that do not feel even the slightest prickle of discomfort from what we’ve done.”
“You’re not going to turn Marxist on me now, are you?”
Rafe’s expression was disdainful. “Please don’t insult my intelligence. No. What I mean is that from now on we’re going to get personal.”
Lisl didn’t like the sound of that.
“What do you mean?”
“Not what—who. I’d rather show you than tell you. And I wish to do a little research first. Tomorrow will be soon enough.” He opened the passenger door to his Maserati and bowed her toward the seat. “Your carriage awaits.”
A small, cold lump formed in Lisl’s stomach as she got in. Her relief that the thefts would stop was undercut by a growing unease about what would replace them.
TWELVE
1
The following day, Lisl opened her apartment door and was startled to find a seedy-looking stranger standing outside. She’d been expecting Rafe.
He was due within the hour and when she heard the bell she figured he was showing up early.
“Can I help you?”
He was thin, graying, haggard looking, but clean-shaven and smelling of a spicy after-shave. A bulky overcoat rounded off the sharp edges of his wiry frame.
“You can if you’re Miss Lisa Whitman.”
“Lisl. That’s me. Who are you?”
He fished a black leather folder from within his coat and flashed a badge at her.
“Detective Augustino, Miss Whitman. State Police.”
She caught a fleeting glimpse of a blue and gold shield before the flap covered it again, then the folder was on its way back inside the coat.
A sudden surge of panic lanced through Lisl.
Police! They know about the stealing!
She glanced down at her sweater where she’d pinned the gold butterfly with the filigree wings. She had an urge to cover it with her hand—but that would be like pointing it out.
This was it: shame, disgrace, a criminal record, the end of her career.
“What…” Her mouth was dry. “What do you want with me?”
“Are you the lady who made the complaint about a crank phone call on December sixteenth?”
Crank phone call? December 16th? What on earth was he—?
“Oh, the party! The call at the party! Oh, that’s right! Ohmigod, I thought you were—” She cut herself off.
“Thought I was what, Miss Whitman?”
“Nothing! Nothing!” Lisl fought an insane urge to burst out laughing. “Nothing at all!”
“May I come in?”
“Yes! Come on in!” she said, opening the door wider and stepping back. She was so weak with relief she had to sit down. “And call me Lisl.”
He glanced at the notepad in his hand.
“So it really is Lisl, with an ‘l’ on the end? I thought it was a misprint.”
“No. My mother was Scandinavian.”
Lisl realized with a shock that she had referred to her mother in the past tense, as if she were dead. After that trip home for Christmas last week, maybe she was, in a sense. She brushed the thought away.
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