by Andrew Gross
“He knew who I was.” Hauck shrugged. “He knew I was an ex-cop. My gut says he was trying to prove a point with the boy. Trying to get to me by going after him.”
“Get to you how?”
“I think you already know the answer to that one, lieutenant…”
The detective lifted a wallet out of the corpse’s pants. “James Alan Merced. The address says Pismo Beach, California. There’s an armed forces ID in here too. The guy’s a vet. Camp Victory. Iraq.”
He dug his finger deep inside the billfold and pulled something out. A small badge—a wreath of gold leaf overset with what looked like a World War I rifle.
Hauck shrugged. “What’s that?”
“CIB badge,” Steve said. “Means he saw hand-to-hand combat. You’re a lucky dude.”
“There’s also a cell phone in the jacket pocket,” Hauck said. “That should tell you something.”
Chrisafoulis looked up at him reprovingly. Only the investigators were supposed to touch the body.
Hauck shrugged sheepishly. “Couldn’t help myself. Old habits are tough to break.”
Soon after, Annie rushed in, straight from the kitchen. She embraced her son tightly, her eyes wet with joyful tears. “Oh, baby, baby, what happened? Thank God you’re okay.”
“The man tried to hurt me, Mom.” Jared squeezed her. “But Ty came in and saved me. They had a big fight. He told me to run, but I tried to help him, Mom.”
“I know, baby, I know,” Annie said. “I heard. You’re such a brave little man.” She hugged him again and looked up at Hauck. “He’s alright?”
“The med tech said just a little shock. Some small cuts on his neck.”
“Ty got cut, Mom. He’s hurt.”
Annie draped her fingers across Jared’s face and went over to Hauck. She put out her arms and gave him a strong, grateful hug, so tightly he could feel the worry and fear in her own accelerated heartbeat. He didn’t resist. It felt good to be in someone’s arms. Someone who loved him.
“They told me outside what happened. I don’t know how to ever thank you enough. You know what Jared means to me. He—” She pressed her lips together tightly to hold back from crying. “You’re hurt?”
“Just a cut. Enough to make me look a little sexy.”
Annie said, “There’s nothing you could ever do that will make you look any sexier to me. I owe you my son’s life. Who’d want to hurt him, Ty? What kind of bastard would do something like this?”
“Someone who may have wanted to hurt me.”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “I want to see him, Ty.”
“No, you don’t want to see him, Annie. I know how you feel…” He put his arm around her and wiped the tears off her face. “You have to take him away from here, Annie…Away from me. Anywhere. And you too. The two of you just can’t be around me right now.”
She looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Because it puts you in danger, Annie. Because whoever was behind this might try it again. Because someone wants to stop me and they’ll hurt any part of me they can get to. Any part that makes me vulnerable.”
“We’re not running away from you right now, Ty.”
“You’re not running away. You’re protecting him. Keep him up at school. Send him back to California to visit your folks. You know how I feel about him, Annie. But he just can’t be around me right now.”
The look of hurt that came on her face shone with fear and worry. She looked at him deeply. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Ty?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll take you home,” Annie said. “I know you need to give a statement, but I’m not going to let you be alone.”
He shook his head. “No, you should be with your son.”
“Ty, please… You were almost killed! You’re hurt. That guy in there doesn’t get to win by driving us away. Please…”
“You go on home,” Hauck said. He put his hand gently on her cheek and walked her over to Jared. “They may need to talk to him again in the morning. I’ll work that out.”
Annie nodded, frustrated, not sure what she could do.
He knelt down and said so long to Jared. “You saved my life, guy! You are one brave little dude!”
The boy got up and hugged him, hard. Hauck realized he would have died himself if he had let anything happen to him. Even now, who knew how he was going to be able to process this? To Jared there was no evil in the world, only kindness. Hauck pulled the boy’s face to his side and mussed his hair. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Jared nodded, putting on a brave smile. “That was a good game, wasn’t it, Ty?”
“Yeah, son, a really good game.”
Annie left the rink with him. Hauck felt a weight of sadness pulling him down. He gave a detailed statement to the detectives, leaving out his suspicion on who might be behind this.
When he finished up, his blood was still pumping and he wasn’t quite sure how to calm it. In his old job, he would’ve started the investigation. Looked into the cell phone. Run a criminal search on Merced.
But now there was really nothing for him to do but just go home.
Steve came up to him. “I can have someone follow you in your car, Ty. You want me to drive you home?”
“No. Thanks,” he said. He shook Steve’s hand. “I’m really okay.”
“Sorry to say this, LT,” the head of detectives said, calling Hauck by his old title, “but you don’t look so okay.”
A tight-fisted pressure had risen up inside him. An overheating boiler. About to explode. He realized just how close he had come to dying and what he would have been leaving behind. He had a sudden flash of feeling totally alone. He wasn’t sure who to call or what to do.
Steve patted him on the shoulder. “Go home. I’m glad you’re okay, Ty. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”
Hauck took the detective’s advice and went out to his car. The chill in the air felt good. The wind beating against his face. A light rain had begun to fall. He stepped around the corner and leaned against the concrete wall, his legs starting to weaken, what strength he still had starting to bleed way.
He lowered himself to the ground. He drew in a long, cooling breath of precious air. It felt good, cleansing, just to be alive. The wind from the sound on his face. The rain. The whoosh of the thruway off in the distance.
Grateful tears filled up Hauck’s eyes.
He sniffed them back, took out his cell, and found a number on the speed dial. His heart racing, he waited for the line to pick up.
Jessie answered on the second ring. “Hey, Daddy-o, what’s going on? It’s a Saturday night…”
“Nothing’s going on, hon.” He blew out his cheeks. “I know it’s a Saturday. I just wanted to hear your voice. What’s going on with you?”
“A bunch of us are over at Kellie’s and we’re watching a movie. Ten Things I Hate About You. Have you seen it, Dad?”
“No.”
“You’d like it. It’s not just a dumb teen flick. It’s based on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.”
“No kidding, babe…” He sat, tears starting to roll down his cheeks. He moved the phone away and pressed it tightly against his sweatshirt, imagining the horror if this had all had a different outcome. What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Ty? “That’s great, hon.”
Jessie paused. “Dad, are you okay?”
“Sure, honey, I’m okay. It’s just … Go back to your friends. You have a fun night. I just wanted to say I love you. That’s all.”
“Dad, you’re sounding a little strange. You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Everything’s fine, hon.” He wiped the tears off his cheeks. “Scout’s honor.”
“You never were a scout, Dad.”
“Right,” he said, chuckling. “Then how about, ‘cross my heart and hope to die’!”
Jessie waited for a second. There was some high-pitched girl chatter in the background. “I love you too, Daddy.”
He clicked off the line and continued to sit against the wall. His fists were coiled in anger—maybe in relief. He sucked a cooling breath into his chest. He felt ready to take them on. The man with the tattoo, the one who had killed April. He was still out there. Hauck was sure this one, at the rink, hadn’t acted alone. He was going to get him; that he would bet his life on. For himself. For April.
He just had no idea who it was.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
You have to learn to relax more, Ty.” April grinned, tapping his hand with her nail. “You seem like you’re itching for a fight.”
It had become a regular thing between them now. Lingering over a coffee up the block from the doctor’s after their sessions. Before Hauck headed back to Queens and April to Connecticut. Occasionally, she stayed in town and went to dinner or a business function with Marc. Today they walked through Madison Square Park.
“I just feel like I’m going a little crazy,” Hauck said. “Stir crazy,” he pointed out with a smile.
“Glad you clarified that!” April said.
“It’s just that it’s time to get back to work. Figure out what’s next.”
Businessmen were sunning themselves at lunch. The cafés around the perimeter were busy. He got a soda and she got a chai at a local Asian market. They sat on a bench.
“See, I told you, you were just passing through…”
“You know, I sorta missed you,” he said, taking a sip of Diet Coke. She hadn’t been there for a couple of weeks. He missed their talks. He’d begun to think of her as a new friend, and his others, some choosing to rally behind Beth in the breakup, some just not a part of what he was going through, he no longer wanted to be around. “You guys were away?”
“No.” She played with a string of brown pearls around her neck. “Just some things going on.”
He stared at her, waiting to see if she was comfortable explaining.
“Nothing you want to know, Ty.”
“Actually, I thought that’s what this was all about. Marc…?”
“No.” She shook her head and smiled, as if with amusement. She cupped her hands around her tea and took a breath. “Okay. You asked for it. Agoraphobia. You know it?”
“Fear of going out?” Hauck said.
“Fear of going out. Fear of attachment. Fear of abandonment. Fear of fucking fear.” She looked at him, hesitating, almost as if she was afraid she had disappointed him. “It’s not that I’m fearful of the world. It’s not like that with me. It’s part of the depression thing. Sometimes it’s like there’s just this weight that pushes on me. I don’t feel connected to anything. I have to force myself just to go out. Just to take my daughter to school.”
“Tell me.”
She pushed her long, sandy hair out of her eyes. “You’re sure you’re into this?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
She exhaled. “Okay. It goes back. I grew up in a small town in Virginia. Where I got my accent from, in case you hadn’t noticed. Actually grew up riding a horse. Did competitions. My dad, who was a local lawyer, taught me how to shoot a shotgun before I knew how to braid my hair. I loved my dad,” she said, eyes beaming. “He was like Atticus Finch to me, Ty. You know what I mean? Everyone in town looked up to him.
“My mom—maybe at one time she was a capable person, but by the time I remember she was simply a country-club drunk. Everything was always an effort for her. Parties. Why she couldn’t make it to my riding events. Just getting dinner on the table. My dad, he was the glue that held everything together. Everything.”
“I know what you mean,” Hauck said, though his own dad, who worked for the Greenwich Department of Water for thirty years, was a million miles away from that.
“Do you?” April said. “When I was sixteen, I pulled my VW into the garage, grabbed my books from the passenger seat, and saw my father lying there…” Her jaw grew tight. “Sitting there against the wall, like he was wondering what shirt to wear, except there was this bright red pattern sprayed against the plaster behind his head. His shotgun was in his lap. Like he wanted me to find him there.”
Hauck reached for her hand. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to go back over—”
“You wanted to know, right? You wanted to know what makes me tick. Anyway, that’s not it. That was a long time ago. Just backstory, as they say. Bank fraud,” she said in response to Hauck’s questioning eyes. “He’d been receiving kickbacks from a local bank where he was directing business. During the big S and L crisis. The thing was ripe with fraud and my father was a part of it.” She chuckled bitterly. “Atticus Finch…I guess you can add fear of being let down to the list as well. Anyway, I ended up at UVA. I majored in art. Did a year of grad school at NYU. You ever hear of the Minimalist movement?”
He shook his head. “Can’t say I have.”
“Sol LeWitt. He did these amazing wall drawings. Richard Tuttle. That was my thing. I studied under Richard Dunn, who was the big cheese in that world. Sort of studied under him. More like I ended up perpetually under him. He was forty-two. I was twenty-three. I always was attracted to older guys. You getting the picture? Anyway, Richard”—April shook her head—“whatever scant trust or faith in myself had managed to make it through to that point, well, he took care of the rest. He was a pompous, spiteful bastard, but he had a long ponytail and everyone in the art world bowed down to him. I spent three years with him. I think he was screwing anyone who knew Rembrandt was Dutch.”
“I thought he was Flemish.” Hauck grinned.
“Well, then you’d have had nothing to worry about.” April laughed. “And believe me, I think he was into that too. Finally I had to just leave the whole program. Dropped out. I stayed in a friend’s apartment for about three months. Lost about twenty pounds. Not sure I ever went out. Read the Upanishads cover to cover. Got involved in a bunch of self-actualization things. I finally took a job selling ad space for this financial magazine. That’s where I met this nice, sort of square, something-a-little-cute-about-him-somewhere guy who was into complex investment models and standard deviations from the mean”—she smiled—“but who I knew wouldn’t let me down and seemed to think I was the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Marc?” Hauck said, smiling.
She nodded.
“Did he know Rembrandt wasn’t Flemish?”
She chuckled. “I just didn’t want to be hurt again.” There was a shimmering in her wide, round eyes. “It wasn’t like there was this great love. He’s just the most stable man I ever met, and I didn’t want to be let down.”
“But you built a life.”
“Yeah.” She nodded brightly, happily. “We built a life. I have a beautiful little girl and a husband who gets up in the middle of the night like clockwork to check his overseas positions. We live in a fancy home. And go on nice vacations. I help out at Becca’s school.” She rotated her cup. “It’s just…It’s May. There are days it just comes and goes. I found my dad the first week of May. It’s always a rough time.” She shrugged and smiled. “See, for me, when you say ‘happy,’ I say that’s just a piece of time I don’t see my father’s face in that garage.”
Hauck looked at her across the bench. He squeezed her on the shoulder. “I won’t let you down.”
“No…” April smiled. “You wouldn’t, would you?” She covered his hand. “That’s why it’s nice being with you. Like I said, you’re just a guest at the old spa—not a resident.”
“You don’t have to be a resident either, April. Look at how you’ve helped me.”
April glanced at her watch. Her eyes grew wide. “Good Lord, I have to go. Becca’s got dance tonight. What kind of mother am I, going on so long with such a cute guy…” An idea seemed to hit her. “You know what we should do?”
“What?” he asked.
“We should take a picture. I have a camera here. You and I.”
“A picture?”
She shrugged. “You never know, one day that might be all we have.”
/> “That won’t happen,” Hauck said, “but sure…”
She dug into her purse, and as she did, it pushed her sleeve up, accidentally exposing her arm. April had always kept them covered.
Hauck’s gaze went to it. A bit in shock—a bit in sadness too.
There were marks. Several short slashes up her arm. Most appeared to have long since healed, but one or two still looked fresh and bright. He suddenly realized why.
His eyes lifted to April’s.
She smiled at him, as if her secret was now out. “So now you know…”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The phone that they removed from Sonny Merced’s body led to a sister in California who hadn’t spoken to him in months; a sometimes girlfriend who claimed she never wanted to see him again; a phone-in sex line; and a number that had been dialed just minutes before the attack, which led to a Michael Cassidy in Union, New Jersey. Who turned out to be a twelve-year-old kid, who, a week before, had lost his phone. Merced’s address was a post office box, the account for which was two months delinquent.
Merced was an ex–army ranger with the Eighty-second Airborne unit who had been drummed out of the service and had been an unindicted suspect in three rape investigations while over in the Middle East. He had an expired Michigan license and had been picked up twice in the past year on assault and drug possession charges. He had made a call to Cassidy’s stolen line minutes before attacking Jared and the police had found no unclaimed car in the rink lot afterward.
Whatever Merced’s motive, it was clear he wasn’t acting alone.
Sunday, the local papers and news channels carried the story of the Iraq War vet who had assaulted a handicapped boy in the locker room of the Hamill rink the night before. The fight to the death of the ex-detective in town who had managed to intercede.
Monday, back at work, everyone seemed to know all the de-tails. In the halls, catching coffee, they all were genuinely disbelieving and shocked, grateful Hauck was alright.