by Harker Moore
Calling in Darius had been simply an attempt to gain an edge. Now he was left with the playbook. Until something clicked. Or unless Kelly was right and he had an edge of his own.
The man sat in a pew near the rear of the empty church, the second time he’d sat here in the last few weeks. He didn’t know why he’d come, either then or now, although today was Marian’s birthday, and this morning’s trip to her grave had been completely unsatisfying. Standing there in the dreary coldness of the cemetery, he hadn’t known what else to do or where else to go. And like a sleepwalker who suddenly discovers himself stranded, he had found himself sitting inside St. Sebastian. Perhaps all along he had been fooling himself about his detachment from his human life.
He breathed in the heavy silence. He was alone. So totally alone. And any extreme isolation was dangerous. It affected judgment. The police were not stupid. Lieutenant James Sakura was not stupid. And he had been pushing the limits with his hasty awakenings of Pinot and Kerry.
He should awaken Zavebe and move on. New York had proved a fertile hunting ground, but there were other cities where he might expect to discover many more of the Fallen. And perhaps he had already found the most powerful here.
He rose and moved quietly near the cages of twin confessionals, his shadow looming like a dark and misshapen gargoyle. As he walked past the stand of lit candles and votives, pennies and nickels winked at him from the offertory tray.
A gust of cold wind ruffled the flames and made him turn. Students from Immaculata, the parish elementary school, had entered the church with their teacher and were tramping down the center aisle, two by two. Outfitted in navy-and-white uniforms, the students marched in on saddle-oxford feet toward the main altar in a gait that resembled a loose type of military precision, with a Catholic-school reverence for the Divine Presence. There seemed to be a thin attempt to keep talk to a whisper.
“Lucia Mancuso, you are supposed to be one of God’s angels sent to proclaim the birth of His Son, not talk to Anna Marie Gandolpho.”
“Yes, Sister Isadore,” the girlish voice answered, making a run up and down a musical scale.
The children had taken position in a kind of semicircle before the side altar, where the newly installed Christmas crèche held prominence. He moved out from the shadows into half-light. The child’s voice had tickled his ear.
She was neither the tallest nor the shortest girl in Sister Isadore’s class, but she was clearly the prettiest. Even from where he stood, he could see her precise, nearly exotic features. The light olive skin that was almost translucent. The dark pixie cap of straight glossy hair. He pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the muscle of his heart constrict and relax. He closed his eyes for a moment, willing his human self to stay calm. When at last he looked again, it was to feast on the light that encircled Lucia’s small, perfect head, to devour the aura burning as brightly as any Gadriel of the Cherubim had ever seen.
Hanae touched the small of her back. The pain had settled in a tight web. She’d been sitting at the worktable far too long, fighting the clay. How could she have been so foolish as to believe her skills could match the memory stored in her fingers? She had never attempted a piece as demanding as this bust. She bit her lip. The likeness was to be Jimmy’s Christmas gift. She rested her forehead against the cool, raw mass.
She had not been the hoped-for child of Japanese parents. Born a girl in a culture that favored males. Born blind in a society that shunned imperfection. The female offspring of a mother who’d struggled in her pregnancy, who’d almost died giving birth. And more tragically, there would be no more children.
In a country that stressed conformity, her visionless eyes had kept her from being completely Japanese. She existed in her own world. Foreign. Hanae. Cherry blossom. Blemished blossom. Yet her blindness had allowed her to define herself, to grow in ways not granted other Japanese women.
Her earliest memories were of her mother’s soft coos against her ear, the warmth of her father’s hand on the top of her head. Like every Japanese child, she had been spoiled and indulged. Fed sweets until she had almost grown fat. Given toys and puzzles for her little fingers to explore. And when she had asked for a pet, her father had bought her first finch that very day.
She would have liked to explain to her parents that her sightless world suited her, since it was the only one she’d ever known. Yet they would have never understood, for they held themselves somehow responsible for her blindness.
But English saved them all. She had a good ear and learning languages had been easy. Of course, it had been the stilted English of language tapes. But it was good enough, so when the man had asked directions in faltering Japanese, she was able to help.
James Sakura had come from New York to visit his grandmother on Hokkaido. A yearly ritual. But fate, her mother said, had brought him to Kyoto, to the park that day. Hanae always waited there while her mother did the shopping. He was sitting on the bench next to her when her mother returned. For a while the three of them made polite conversation, Hanae acting as interpreter when Jimmy’s Japanese failed.
The next day she had asked her cousin to accompany her to the park. She never knew if Nori saw through the pretense of wanting to attend the toy boat races on the lake. But it didn’t matter. James Sakura was waiting for her.
The following day her mother went with her. And in what was a bold overture for a Japanese woman, Hanae’s mother invited James Sakura to their home for tea. Over the next weeks Hanae saw Jimmy often, storing away each memory, saving up for the time when he would go away forever. Yet before he had left Kyoto, there had been many surprises for both of them. Jimmy had been brought into a case in which she’d played her small part. And Jimmy had asked her to marry him.
That had been five years ago. She lifted her head and, regulating her breathing, centered herself. Once more, her hands reached for the clay. She could feel that the nose was wrong. The forehead too wide, the eye sockets too deep. Jimmy’s face. The face she held so clearly in her mind’s eye, the face she loved above all others, she could not find in the clay. It seemed as blank to her as the face of a stranger.
She stood up and stretched. Taiko rose too, sensing her restlessness. Her skin seemed too small, her breath too shallow. She reached back and loosened her hair, letting it fall to her waist. In every part of her, there was an unaccustomed energy that she both welcomed and loathed.
She pressed against her abdomen. Jimmy’s other gift. Not planned like the sculpture. But unexpected. Now that Dr. Blanchard had confirmed her pregnancy, she had to tell Jimmy. Had to find the right time. But he was so seldom home, and with the increasing pressures of the case, it would not do to have him … Upset? Was that what she feared? That Jimmy might not want this baby?
Anyone could see they were sisters. The exactness of their features was the same, although the one who waited outside on the steps of St. Sebastian was taller and fairer than the other. And there was a frailness in the older sister, where the other was pure energy.
“You shouldn’t have waited, Celia,” the dark little one said as she bounded down the steps.
“You know Mama wants us to walk home together.”
“It’s only five blocks, CeCe.”
“Never mind. Where’s your jacket, Lucia?”
The girl touched her arms as if to confirm she was without her coat. “Guess I forgot it in the classroom.”
“Maybe it’s in church.”
She shook her head. “I’ll get it tomorrow.” Lucia hooked her arm through her sister’s and pulled her down the last of the church steps onto the sidewalk. “You worry too much, CeCe. Let Mama do the worrying.”
The older girl adjusted her backpack. It seemed too heavy for her delicate frame. She coughed, a deep croupy sound.
Lucia turned and frowned. “You getting sick again?”
“You worry too much, Lucia,” she said, mimicking her sister, a breathy laugh mixing in with the tail end of her cough.
“You should
have gone home.”
The girl shook her head, fighting off another spasm.
“Why didn’t you wait inside?”
“I did.” Her voice was wheezy. “I watched some of the practice. I walked out at the end.”
They began to move, arm in arm, down the street. Lucia doing most of the talking, Celia nodding in agreement or shaking her head in despair.
“You know Pete Fazio is in love with you,” Lucia was saying.
“He is not. Besides, Jennie Daughtery likes him.”
“So. He doesn’t give a damn about fat Jennie Daughtery.”
“Lucia, that language. Papa would kill you.”
“And who’s going to tell him?”
Celia looked down to her saddle oxfords, then up at Lucia. A smile lit her beautiful face. It was easy to see that it was love, not intimidation, that would keep her from tattling.
“So when are you going to tell Pete you like him?”
“I … I don’t.” It was a weak denial.
“If you don’t tell him, I—” Lucia didn’t finish but stopped, turning sharply. Her dark eyes searched the empty street behind her. After a moment she frowned, shrugged her shoulders, and turned back.
“What’s wrong, Lucia?”
“Nothing.” Lucia had begun walking again, her step quicker, her sister struggling to keep pace. “Come on,” she ordered. “It’s getting colder.”
The man watched from his sheltered position as Lucia’s aura, a guiding light in the darkening street, pointed all three of them in the direction of home.
Hanae pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, resting her forehead against the stubborn clay. She had no more success with the bust this evening than she had had this morning. Her wrists were stiff, the tips of her fingers numb. But it was her heart that most ached. Jimmy’s face could not be coaxed out.
She lifted her head, touching the Band-Aid wound around her index finger. She had injured herself with one of her knives. It was just a small cut, but for some reason the bleeding had been difficult to staunch.
“Have you been working all day?”
She started at the sound of Jimmy’s voice, her hands reaching for the cloth to cover the bust. “I did not hear you. You are home early.”
He moved closer, planting a soft kiss on the top of her head. “Still won’t let me see?”
“No.” She turned and let him kiss her full on the mouth. “How was your day?”
He walked away, and she could hear him open a door to one of the birdcages and make a cooing sound. “Why don’t they ever have anything to say to me?”
“Maybe they don’t know how to speak to a detective.”
His laughter told her he understood her not so subtle message. “Michael came in to see me today. He’s decided he wants off the case.”
“I am sorry. For you. And for Kenjin.”
“It was never anything official. He was more or less operating on his own.” He moved back toward her. “What’s this?” He was touching the finger she’d hurt.
“Nothing. A small cut.” She felt his lips brush against the Band-Aid.
“I need a bath.” He released her hand.
She listened as he walked out of the room. Enter their bedroom. Kenjin gone. Off the case. Like the blood from the cut, it stirred something dark inside. Tonight she must perform chinkon-sai to calm the unsettled spirits.
CHAPTER
12
Late Saturday morning. Willie lay curled on the sofa in the Jamilis’ pleasant living room, enjoying the fire that burned in the grate. The second-floor apartment looked out onto Washington Square Park, and through the large picture window she could watch the holiday crowds that thronged the Village, despite the awful weather. Christmas was less than a month away, and she had yet to buy her presents, much less mail them to New Orleans. She would have to get out there today, her day of rest as dictated by Jimmy. Tunnel vision results when you’re too close to a case. Give it a rest. Come back with a fresh perspective. Her own preaching thrown back at her.
It was still good advice. She was a bit burned-out after two weeks of sixteen-hour days working with the members of the task force, talking one-on-one with as many of them as she could, hoping to fill in the cracks of dry reports with something that would break this thing. But it was all with little result.
According to the colleagues she had called, there was no one on the East Coast with a grant for therapeutic use of psychoactive drugs. So that particular theory of a patient “pushed over the edge” through LSD experimentation by a psychiatrist was pretty much a dead end, since there was no way to trace illegal psychiatric use.
There’d been nothing new learned from Kerry’s murder, except the doctor’s connection to Carrera. No link to any of the other victims. No witness since the bartender who had only glimpsed the probable killer with Westlake. Unless you counted the woman in Kerry’s building who’d seen an apparently different man with the doctor at his apartment. Nothing that would change her original profile or provide new insight into the killer’s fantasy.
A week now since Kerry’s murder. They were all in suspension, consciously or not, waiting. It was a mood as oppressive as the weather, a sullen premonitory coldness that hung about day after day.
As had so often happened since their visits together to the Milne and Westlake crime scenes, she thought of Darius. The intrusion was irritating. His bowing out of the case had not really surprised her. But his abrupt departure had left her with a feeling of … Unfinished business was the best way she had to describe it. And time after time this past week as she’d worked the case, she’d found herself wondering what Michael’s response might be to some thought or theory that occurred to her. She had to admit he was interesting—more than the bitter ex-cop. She was actually sorry she wasn’t going to see him again.
A log popped and stirred in the fire. She sighed and sat up. Enough damn rest. And the hell with Christmas. A serial investigation was a full-time thing. She was going to Police Plaza, where she might at least do some good.
The bruised greenish sky had not changed since morning. It leaked a perpetual drizzle that thickened to gray mist shrouding cold stone and pavement. Moving at ground level was a magical act, like breathing underwater.
The narrow side street seemed almost deserted, as quiet as a street in the city ever was on a Saturday in early December. The small figure in the shiny yellow slicker bounded along the sidewalk, hood thrown back, rubbered feet dancing and splashing through every slight depression where rain had collected in the pavement. For the man, following on his Harley, the light bounced too. A spherical glow, lanternlike in the mist, tethered to the dark little head.
The light stopped, disappeared through the door of the small neighborhood pharmacy. He continued down the street, then turned to circle the block. He did not believe in fate, was fully aware of the danger. But this kind of opportunity might not come again.
The mobility of the bike made it possible. That, and the weird muffling effect of the weather. Still, his timing had to be perfect.
She emerged from the store with a little white bag in her hand. He hung back, waiting, as her return trip through the puddles brought her closer to the street. The traffic light went green at the end of the block; cars swept past. He gunned the Harley, curving onto the sidewalk, sweeping her up, arcing into the alley.
She was strong for her age. A good fit for her body. His hand was across her mouth, keeping her silent, his arm pinning her to his chest as she kicked and clawed. With his free hand he reached for the canister clipped to his belt beneath the dark rubber poncho, held his breath while he sprayed her. A good dose before the quick injection that would keep her out for a while.
The drizzling mist, condensing to rain in the narrow brick canyon, fell like a curtain between the alley and street. Still, he was careful, propping her on the far side of the cycle to tape her wrists before removing his poncho.
For a moment as he lifted her, the puppy dog smell of
her damp hair evoked a human sadness. In the next moment he had settled her with her arms around his neck, her body hanging limply at his back. He straddled the Harley and put the poncho back on. Beneath its heavy folds, balanced behind him on the seat, Lucia and her light were invisible.
Tony Paladino was furious. At the weather. At his luck. He knew what he must look like as he walked into the dealership. Wet to the skin and puffing like a bull with a cardiac. He should have gone home to change, but that would have put up Barbara’s antenna and made him even later than he was now for his Saturday split.
It hadn’t been the best of times at Odyssey Lincoln Mercury. What with the freaky weather bumming everyone out. October and November, usually among the best months, had been lousy for sales. So it shouldn’t matter at all that he was late for his shift, but Harris was an asshole who wanted a full complement of salesmen on the floor, even if all that was dribbling through the big glass doors was rain.
“You’re a bit late to the dance.” Steve Meyer was grinning ear to ear as he walked up. The prominent teeth in his too thin face made him look like a weasel.
“Don’t fuck with me, Steve. Besides, you didn’t have to stick. What’s one less salesman on the floor these days?”
Meyer’s grin grew wider. He had something to say but held it. “So what happened to you?” he said instead.
“Fucking flat.”
“Too bad.”
“Yeah … well. For God’s sake, what’s up? You gonna bust a gut if you don’t tell me.”
“That Cartier L … silver frost with graphite leather interior. I sold it.”
“No shit.”
“This woman comes in. Didn’t look to be more than twenty. Jeans and a sweatshirt. No makeup. No flash at all. Just looking, I figure. You’re up, but you’re not here, and no way am I letting Jennings take it, even if she looks like she’s got empty pockets. So I waltz over sweetly and ask if I can help.”