by Sydney Bauer
Forty-five minutes later, David was enjoying a strong hot coffee in Joe Mannix’s living room while, under Marie’s supervision, the four Mannix boys, whose ages ranged from seven to fourteen, took turns at attempting to feed David’s daughter, in between quarrelling over who would claim the free toy at the bottom of the Crispy Flakes box.
‘Makes you wanna dive straight back in and produce your own battalion of kids – am I right?’ smiled Joe as he tilted his head toward the noise coming from the kitchen and took a sip of his own black brew. Despite Joe’s attempt at sarcasm, David knew his detective friend was more than happy with his lot in life, even if he was nothing short of exhausted at the end of every day.
‘Something like that,’ said David. ‘As long as we could ask you and Marie to babysit.’
‘No way. Four’s my limit,’ said Joe. ‘And besides, I don’t think they’d survive.’
‘I don’t think you’d survive,’ countered David.
Joe laughed. ‘So, what’s up?’ he asked after a pause, cupping his mug in his two large hands, the steam rising slowly from its surface.
‘I spoke to Chris,’ said David.
‘And?’
‘And he was in shock, Joe. He may not have said as much, but I know the guy, and he is terrified McNally’s vic and his girlfriend of almost twenty-five years are one and the same.’
‘So he admitted they were sleeping together?’
‘No.’
‘But you’re sure they were?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘They ever fight?’
‘Not that I know of. When we were kids, they were so in love with each other it was sickening.’
‘So how come they didn’t end up together?’
It was one of those questions like, ‘Why do we have to go to war to keep the peace?’ or ‘How come people cry when they are happy?’
‘It was never going to happen,’ said David.
‘What? Didn’t she pass your friend’s “perfect politician’s wife” exam?’ asked Joe, with just the slightest tinge of disgust.
‘The girl didn’t fit anything. She wasn’t made to fit, Joe. Her entire persona was built on shocking people – with her beauty, her brazenness, her honesty.’ David noticed he’d said ‘was’.
‘So the guy marries a June Cleaver replica?’ asked Joe.
‘Not exactly.’ David tried to find the right way to describe the complicated situation that was Chris Kincaid’s love life. ‘You see, Chris’s mom – she always had this set idea about who Chris should date and, more importantly, who he should marry.’
‘And his current wife fitted that bill.’
‘No – at least, not at first. From what I can gather – and you have to remember I had left Newark for Boston by then – Marilyn and Chris had some sort of temporary falling out and Chris . . . well, somehow he ended up taking revenge on her by sleeping with her best friend.’
‘Jesus,’ said Joe. ‘The wife and the lover were . . .’
‘Inseparable at school,’ finished David. ‘Rebecca was always the follower, lost in Marilyn’s shadow. So then, of course, fate steps in and Rebecca falls pregnant – and Gloria, Chris’s mom, who is all about appearances, takes charge and talks her son into marrying the girl, and then spends the next ten years grooming her to be the ideal political partner. Gloria’s husband Daniel was Governor of New Jersey, so Gloria kind of had the dutiful wife routine down pat.’
Joe nodded.
‘So is there any news on McNally’s drowning victim?’ asked David after a pause.
‘Nothing new, but they’ve scheduled the autopsy for today.’
‘On a Saturday?’
‘The body was in the water for close to two weeks. They have a narrow window here, David,’ said Joe, his eyes suggesting he did not want to upset his good friend. ‘Besides, McNally and the ME go way back . . .’ he added and it seemed to David like Joe was about to go on, his mouth open as if there was something else to say. But then Joe sat back in his worn armchair and took a long, slow sip of his coffee.
‘What?’ asked David.
‘What what?’
‘You were going to say something else.’
But Joe said nothing for a time, before finally putting his drink on the low-standing coffee table and meeting David’s eye.
‘McNally’s wife died about six months ago,’ he said.
‘I didn’t know,’ said David, feeling sorry for the cop who he always found to be smart, efficient, helpful. ‘She was a cop as well, wasn’t she?’
Joe nodded. ‘She died on the job, last summer. During those hurricanes that belted the east coast. She was trying to rescue this kid from a storm-water drain in Belmont.’
‘She drowned?’ David was unable to hide his shock.
‘She managed to drag the kid to a safety ramp before being carried away by the current.’
‘Jesus,’ said David.
‘I know,’ said Joe.
‘So do you think . . . ?’ David began before Joe broke in.
‘I think McNally is a good detective and he will do his darnedest not to allow his personal experiences to influence his approach to a case.’
‘I don’t know about you, Joe, but if I’d lost Sara that way and saw this new victim, discarded in the Passaic, then . . .’ said David.
‘Me too,’ said Joe, with no further explanation needed.
‘So what is your friend going to do?’ asked Joe after a time.
‘He’s going to go to the police.’
Joe nodded, his shoulders dropping ever so slightly, perhaps in relief that David could now let this one go. ‘You did the right thing by calling him, David. Going to the cops is the right thing to do.’
But when David looked to his friend, he guessed Joe could see the relief was not exactly mutual. ‘He asked me to go with him,’ he told Joe, knowing there was no point in beating around the bush.
‘What?’
‘Chris asked me to accompany him to Newark PD’s 3rd Precinct at three o’clock this afternoon, and I said yes.’
‘Jesus, David.’ Joe shook his head in disapproval. ‘This is a mistake. The man must have a billion attorneys at his disposal. This might not even be the same woman for Christ’s sake – and, even if it is, if your friend is innocent, why the hell does he need a lawyer for in the first place?’
‘He doesn’t need a lawyer, Joe, he needs a friend. I’ll be in and out – one day, two tops.’
But Joe obviously wasn’t convinced. ‘This is a mistake,’ he said again.
‘I won’t let it be, Joe.’
‘I’ve heard that before, David, but at least on those occasions you have limited your “leap before you look” approach to Boston. Newark is a whole new kettle of fish, my friend. You may know how this city works criminally, legally – but Newark, New Jersey? You might not be aware of what you’re getting yourself into.’
‘I’m not getting into anything, Joe. And besides, I grew up in Newark, so how hard can it be?’
‘You’re going where you haven’t gone before, David.’
‘No I’m not, Joe.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m going home.’
13
‘She was still alive when she hit the water.’
And there it was, plain and simple. Salicia Curtis had conducted most of the autopsy in silence and Harry McNally had not asked any questions, knowing the competent ME would summarise her findings when she was ready.
The examination had been gruelling, largely due to the putrefaction of the body. While the cold temperatures of the Passaic worked to slow decomposition, the reasonably stagnant state of the water surrounding the body hastened its decay. Further, a lack of freezer space in the morgue meant the body had had to stay in the cooler truck before being transferred for autopsy, resulting in further temperature changes and movement and further breakdown of examinable tissue and skin slippage which meant that the poor woman in front of them was virtually unidentifiable.
‘So it wasn’t t
he blunt forced trauma to the head that killed her?’ he asked, referring to the evidence of a blow and subsequent brain haemorrhage Salicia had also found during the course of the autopsy.
‘No, the blow to the back of the head was severe enough to cause the internal bleeding, and we could well have listed the subdural haematoma as the eventual cause of death if the victim had not been deposited in the Passaic before the cranial bleeding had time to send her into an irreversible coma. But our friend here,’ Sal gestured at the victim on the cold metal slab before them, ‘has water in her airway and stomach, and her lungs are swollen and there is evidence of bleeding which signifies an aggressive struggle for air.’
McNally nodded. ‘And the cold?’ he asked, knowing the temperature in the river – a little over four degrees – was enough to send a human into hypothermia.
‘There’s evidence of spasm of the larynx,’ replied Sal, ‘which means she had a severe reaction to the sudden exposure to the cold. In fact, given she would have been groggy from the blow – and her heart rate must have decreased to a point close to non-existence – the massive drop in temperature would, at least initially, have helped her regain consciousness.’
‘Just in time to struggle for her life,’ said McNally.
‘Yes,’ replied Sal, ‘until the lack of oxygen sent her into cardiac arrest.’ The ME took a breath. ‘Once again, hypothermia could have been listed as the cause of death if she had stayed alive long enough for her body temperature to drop below 77°F. That would have resulted in the enzymes in her body slowing down to the point where her vital organs were no longer able to function. But my guess is she was dead long before the one to three hour benchmark of hypothermia-related deaths in waters between three and ten degrees.’
‘So this vic had three doors of death to choose from – a blow to the back of the head, asphyxia or freezing to death?’
‘Pretty much,’ said Sal, her eyes sad behind the plastic glasses. ‘But I’m afraid there was no choosing about it. The perp who hit her set the whole process in motion leaving her body no option but to take the easiest route out. At least the drowning must have been quick.’
If the words were meant to comfort him, they didn’t. ‘You think she gave in?’ he asked.
‘On the contrary, I think she put up a hell of a fight.’
‘There’s more evidence of trauma?’ asked McNally.
‘Trauma . . . and of rape.’
‘Aw, Jesus,’ said McNally, unable to help himself.
Salicia nodded. ‘There were several bruises on the victim’s legs, her face and her jaw, as well as evidence of fresh vaginal bruising and tearing.’
McNally shook his head. ‘And let me guess, that week in the water got rid of every trace of evidence that could link us to the asshole who did this to her.’
Salicia did not answer, but simply offered him a smile. ‘Now you see, McNally, that’s where the good news comes in. Freezing water may be deadly enough to kill a person but it can also act as a very effective agent when it comes to preserving criminal evidence.’
‘The cold preserved the seminal fluid.’
‘If there are traces of seminal fluid inside her, it well may have. But I won’t know that until I analyse the swabs that I took.’
McNally nodded, praying they were going to get lucky.
‘It gets better if you’re up for it,’ added Curtis then, her smile widening, just a little. ‘I found some near-frozen skin matter lodged deep under the fingernails of her two remaining fingers on the right hand.’
‘She scratched the perp?’ asked a now excited McNally.
‘Maybe,’ Sal replied. ‘Cold, relatively stagnant water is a ME’s best friend, McNally. I took several samples from both her uterus and her fingernails, and I think we might be in luck.’
‘You can get this jerk’s DNA?’ McNally needed to confirm it.
‘It’s possible.’
It took all of Harry’s strength not to run around the open corpse in front of him and offer Salicia Curtis a long and grateful hug.
‘Anyone ever tell you you rock, Curtis?’
‘Not since I was a teenager,’ she replied.
‘Well, you do.’
Salicia smiled again. ‘I know.’
14
Newark, New Jersey
There was very little Gloria Kincaid did not know about her next-door neighbours. Short Hills, in the township of Milburn, was one of the most expensive suburbs in Essex County – hell, in New Jersey as a whole, and Gloria knew that keeping abreast of what went on in the two-storey Colonial that was number 14 Walnut Crescent was the most important task on her daily agenda – largely because it involved her keeping an eye on her son’s activities and those of his substandard brood of four.
Right now she could hear her daughter-in-law apologising to the help. Something about forgetting to buy enough potting mix for the new rose bushes. Gloria was sitting at her sunroom window, which meant that if it weren’t 11.45 on a Saturday morning, the Tremonts in number 12 would most likely have heard her daughter-in-law too (Nathan and Eleanor Tremont had a teenage daughter who played competition lacrosse every Saturday at noon which meant – as luck would have it – the trio would have left well over twenty minutes ago). It really was ridiculous, the way Rebecca clung to that working-class inferiority complex of hers. She was a senator’s wife for Christ’s sake, and at some point she had to let go of the Little Orphan Annie thing.
Lord knows she’d tried with Rebecca, and, despite her current frustrations, she knew she’d done a fairly respectable job, especially considering what she’d had to work with in the first place. Then again, Rebecca Gillies Kincaid might be a dull-as-dishwater also-ran with a plain face and cowering demeanour – but Gloria did have to admit that the woman had resolve. She clung to her husband like feathers on tar, no matter how little affection he showed for her. And that unshakable devotion to her politician spouse had worked appreciably in Gloria’s favour.
The trick to it was knowing when to turn a blind eye. And Rebecca was very good at that. Perhaps her pathetic upbringing as the fifth of seven children born to a mother who’d spent twenty years as a check-out cashier at Wal-Mart and a father who ran a seedy-looking pawn shop in Jersey City had taught her a thing or two about denying the tragedies of reality.
Rebecca had it down pat. She ignored the fact that her plain twin daughters were completely devoid of any talent and personality whatsoever; she indulged her son in his sullenness and his extremely poor choice of friends; and she completely overlooked the fact that her husband’s attentiveness ended the moment the cameras stopped rolling and, more to the point, she’d never once protested at his sleeping with her ex-best friend.
It really was quite remarkable, thought Gloria as she sipped her chamomile tea from a china cup and listened to her son’s wife apologise to the gardener once again. It wasn’t acceptable for her to forget to buy the regular garden supplies, but it was fine and dandy for her husband to continue his twice-weekly routine of fucking that slut. Rebecca would do anything to live up to her self-appointed role of devoted supporter, including denying what she knew to be true.
Of course, Gloria knew all about denial. She had perfected the art of discerning what matters she should confront and those she should obliterate from any form of acknowledgment many years ago.
She had learnt it from her grandmother – the beautiful Victoria Vandercamp who was born into money, married for more, and saw the regular payments to her husband’s gambling debtors as part of the deal of being the spouse of a man of considerable means. She’d learnt it from her mother who overlooked her husband’s infidelity in return for his last name of Astor and the country club kudos that went with it. And she’d applied such selective acknowledgment to her own life when, on the very night her husband had been elected Governor, he had explained, in a moment of honesty and friendship that he was ‘batting for the other team’. He’d honestly believed that she had no clue – and was completely taken a
back when she assured him she was quite aware of his sexual preferences and more than happy to continue their little charade as long as he remained discreet and continued his push for Congress. It really hadn’t been that difficult.
And so, as Gloria sat back in her green chintz armchair, the sun now streaming through the eastern bay windows, and watched her daughter-in-law back down her drive in her BMW SUV to go to the supermarket to buy some more potting mix, she took comfort in knowing that she had stepped up again, this time by removing the only thing that stood between her son and the future that awaited him.
She prayed, then and there, that despite the emotional setback Chris would inevitably suffer at her action, that he would also be man enough to take the reins and run with them – that he had inherited enough political nous from his mother to realise that remorse was not an option, and enough strength and stoicism from the man who had fathered him to forget the mistakes of the past and keep the truth hidden. Just as she had done all those many years ago.
15
Connor Kincaid was having trouble breathing.
He was in the locker room. It was late. The rest of the team had left over an hour ago and Connor’s back was sore from the numerous slaps of congratulation that he’d received after scoring a free throw to win the game for the Saint James’s Academy home team.
Connor was good at sports. Not because he tried at them, but because they came naturally to him – like they had his father before him. Connor was tall and lean and good-looking in a dark and brooding sort of way. He was his father’s son in so many ways, except for where it counted – when it came to charisma and personality and charm.
Connor lifted his head from his hands and saw his sweaty reflection bouncing off the bright red metallic locker doors. His image was distorted, the sweat running down his face looking more like droplets of blood than perspiration. The very image of it made him sick to his stomach yet again, as he pulled out his cell phone for the umpteenth time and willed it to ring or beep with a message from his two best friends.