The knot in my kishkas was as tight as the rope that bound the Hollow Girl. Nothing I’d seen or heard dissuaded me. The noose, the oxygen mask, the photo nearly out of the shot, the ticking clock all convinced me I had been right about Burton Johns. It was hard to win an argument with a hunch and a knotted belly against stamped passports, airline tickets, and tap-in putts with an ambassador. Don’t for a second think my dismissal didn’t eat at me. It did. I was afraid for Nancy and for Siobhan. I knew death was in the air no matter what the FBI said, but I had been shown the door. I had a life to get on with and so I was determined, for once, to look straight ahead and carry on.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Winter in October had come to Sheepshead Bay. The wind was blowing hard so that the trees across Emmons Avenue bent over like old men straining to touch their toes. I’d always thought of them that way, as old men. Fishing boats rocked and bobbed in the usually calm bay waters. There were reports of a possible nor’easter coming through in the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours, so it made perfect Moe Prager sense that I had decided to go up to Vermont to be with Sarah, Ruben, and Paul. The fantasy of playing with my grandson in the snow was a powerful motivator, and I wanted to be close to Pam.
I had dreamed of her, not as the woman beneath the wheels of a jeep, but as the woman who’d purposely rammed her car into mine. In the dream we were in Coney Island again, sharing hot dogs and french fries at Nathan’s. We were naked, sharing wine in my bed. It was stupid and sentimental of me, I was aware, to want to smell her in her clothes before the bundles Sarah had made were shipped off to the Goodwill shop in town. I wanted to say goodbye without the grief and the Dewar’s. I needed to say goodbye the right way: in love, not in sorrow.
Sarah was as crazy as me because she thought it was a great idea for me to come up and be with them if the storm came. She was a lot like Katy, but she also had the Prager streak of love before logic in her genes. Neither one of us had displayed it much since Katy’s murder, especially not to one another, but it felt good that she was so enthusiastic about my coming up. Her fervor erased any doubts I had about making the trip. That said, neither one of us was totally meshugge. She demanded that I swap my car for Aaron’s all-wheel drive Audi. It was an easy promise to keep, as opposed to the other ones I’d made recently that would go unfulfilled. I left the house, bag in hand, without booting up my computer or turning on the TV. I had had enough.
I met Aaron at Bordeaux in Brooklyn, on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights. Of all our stores, Bordeaux in Brooklyn would be the only one I’d miss. It had been the only one in which I’d ever felt at home. It’s where I’d kept my office, and it was close to 40 Court Street where Carmella and I had run Prager & Melendez Investigations, Inc. I didn’t have any sentimental attachments to any of the other stores, not even our first store, City on the Vine, on Columbus Avenue by the Museum of Natural History. I had good and bad memories from all the stores, but it was the years I spent at Bordeaux in Brooklyn with Klaus, the punk rocker turned wine buyer and manager, that I would recall most fondly.
Aaron was waiting for me in my office, sitting behind my old desk. He threw his car keys to me as I came through the door.
“The last time you threw keys at me, you nearly took my head off,” I said, flipping my keys to him.
“I missed, didn’t I?”
“Not by much.”
“You look good, little brother. A little tired, maybe, but good. So what’s this trip?”
“I’m going up to be with Sarah and to work on Pam’s house. I need to move on with my life.”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t wait until after the storm, yutz?”
“Mommy would be so happy that you still worry about me. But no, I’ve just gotta get up there.”
“You’re still sure you want to get out of the business? This office won’t be the same without you in it.”
“I’m sure, Aaron. It’s time.”
He stood, came around the desk, and gave me a hug. “I love you, you shithead. Even with all the tsuris through the years, I wouldn’t have wanted to do this without you.”
“I love you, too, big brother. I’ll be back in a couple of days.”
“Don’t sweat it. Wine and cars, we got plenty. You go have fun and kiss them all from Uncle Aaron. The car’s in the usual spot in the garage.”
“Mine is in my spot.”
I drove the big black Audi out of the garage, worked over to Court Street, and made my way to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Almost unconsciously, I turned on the radio. I wished I hadn’t, because Aaron had it tuned to a news station and the first thing that blared out of the speakers after the sports update was that annoying electronic theme music they play when there’s breaking news. Part of me hoped it would be a weather update on the coming storm. For most of my lifetime, New Yorkers hadn’t been too terribly weather conscious. Whatever the weather was, it was, and we managed. In recent years, after a flurry of superstorms, hurricanes, and historic snowfalls, the city had become nearly as weather crazed as Corn Belt farmers. But it wasn’t a weather update. Somehow, I knew it wouldn’t be.
The reporter spoke in hushed tones with the noise of people mumbling, chairs and feet shuffling in the background.
“This is Quinn Peters at One Police Plaza. We’re here for an emergency press conference called by a joint task force comprised of the NYPD, several other local law enforcement agencies, and the FBI. We have not been briefed on what the conference is to be about, but rumors are it has to do with the current Internet phenomenon of the Hollow—hold it, the commissioner is stepping to the microphone. Here is Commissioner Riley.”
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. In a moment, FBI Special Agent Stewart Griggs will be stepping to the microphones. After his statement, we will take questions, but I ask that you please hold those questions until we indicate we are ready to take them. This is a serious matter of life and death and we ask for your patience. Special Agent Griggs ….”
“Good afternoon. Thank you, Commissioner Riley. We have strong reason to believe the woman known to millions of Internet viewers as the Hollow Girl has been abducted and is in serious danger of losing her life. Here is a recent photo of her, alongside a still shot taken from a recent video post. Her legal name is Siobhan Bracken, and she is also known as Sloane Cantor. She is a thirty-one-year-old Caucasian. She has blue eyes, is five foot seven inches in height, weighing approximately one hundred and forty to fifty pounds. I will not spend the precious time we have here recounting her story, but please be aware that in spite of the disclaimers that have appeared before and after her recent posts, we believe she is in serious danger.
“The photo behind me is of Robert Allen Kaufman, the man we believe is holding Miss Bracken against her will. Kaufman, formerly of San Antonio, Texas, relocated to the New York metropolitan area six months ago. Kaufman, a photographer and videographer, has been in and out of psychiatric facilities over the past ten years. He has made threats against Miss Bracken, and apparently holds her responsible for the death of his mother in a traffic accident involving an ambulance some fourteen years ago in Texas. Kaufman is a forty-seven-year-old Caucasian and he, too, has blue eyes. He weighs approximately two hundred and twenty pounds and stands six feet two inches tall. He is considered armed and extremely dangerous. He is implicated in at least one homicide and a suspect in two attempted homicides. Under no circumstances should a member of the public approach Mr. Kaufman or anyone who might resemble him. Please call 911. All reports will be taken seriously and kept confidential. Again, do not approach him. To do so would put not only your life at risk, but Miss Bracken’s as well.
“Kaufman’s last known address was in Bayside, Queens, New York, but we have searched those premises and it appears he has not occupied that residence for a month or more. Mr. Kaufman, we believe, is most likely holding Miss Bracken somewhere on Long Island, within the confines of Nassau County or Western Suffolk County. He has been spotted driving
a rented blue 2013 Toyota Camry sedan, New York tag number WH2001. With the storm approaching and time running out, we felt it important to enlist the public’s cooperation. Again, I must stress, do not approach the suspect Kaufman under any circumstances. Call 911 immediately. After the Q&A, data sheets on both Miss Bracken and Mr. Kaufman will be handed out to those in attendance. That information is also available now on our website and the websites of the following law enforcement agencies: the NYPD, the Nassau County and Suffolk County PDs, and the Connecticut State Police. Questions?”
I switched off the news station and put on the ’60s station on satellite radio. I didn’t want to think about Robert Allen Kaufman, an admittedly perfect suspect, or the Hollow Girl. I wanted to get up to see my kid and hug her tight, and while I drove I wanted to listen to songs without irony or cynicism. It always amazed me that the music of the decade that gave us the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy and King assassinations, Vietnam, Selma, the Manson family murders, and so much more contained so much optimism and earnestness. When people sang about love in the ’60s, it wasn’t freighted with knowing ennui and impending doom. Then “Turn Down Day” by The Cyrcle ended, and Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” came on. Figured.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I’d made it about as far as Hartford, Connecticut, before I decided to find a place to ride out the storm. The roads were still okay, but the storm was blowing freezing rain and snow all over the place. I was in no mood for a fender bender or to get stuck in the middle of I-91, so I found a hotel near the interstate and settled in. I called Sarah to let her know that I’d be delayed and where I was staying. She sounded relieved to hear it. I could also tell she was desperate for my opinion on the Hollow Girl situation.
“Go ahead, kiddo, ask,” I said, resting my head against the hotel pillow and flipping on the TV.
“What happened, Dad? Why aren’t you on the case anymore?”
“I came up with a different suspect. Doesn’t matter. Even if they thought I was right, once the feds are called in, they’re in charge. There would have been no place for me.”
“You don’t think it’s Kaufman who has her?”
“No, he probably does. My guy is apparently in the Middle East somewhere. Kaufman fits.”
“Do you really think he’s going to kill her?”
“I do, and soon.”
“Oh, my God, Dad. And here we all were watching him torture her.”
“You couldn’t know that. None of us could.”
“Do you think it’s just revenge, like they’re saying? It was fourteen years ago.”
“Revenge was motive enough for the men who killed your mother.”
A painful silence echoed across both ends of the phone. Sarah hadn’t been thinking in those terms. I guess I could have answered her without putting it that way, but I was through pretending with my daughter. The facts were the facts: Revenge has a long shelf life. I had ruined someone’s career and marriage, and he took his revenge on my ex-wife in front of me nearly two decades later. It’s why Sarah had barely spoken to me from 2000 to 2007. She blamed me for her mother’s murder. Me, too.
“You’re right, Dad. That was a dumb question. I’m sorry.”
“No, kiddo, it wasn’t. I’m sorry it still hurts so much.”
“I forgave you a long time ago. Just be safe tonight, and get up here when you can. We’re all excited to see you, and I’ve really got Pam’s place pretty organized.”
“Love ya.”
“You, too, Dad. Very much. We all do.”
I turned up the sound on the TV and clicked through the channels. Hotel television sucks at best—ten sports news channels, ten news channels, five business news channels, local over the air channels, and one movie channel—but when there’s a storm closing in on the biggest media market in the country and a psycho killer is on the prowl, hotel TV is worse still. There seemed to be no other images available except those of swirling weather maps, hooded weather people standing in the sleet, bug-eyed Robert Allen Kaufman, and the Hollow Girl. There was the occasional image of Siobhan and of the young Sloane Cantor. But the news media, their standards of good taste ranging between that of a hormonal thirteen-year-old boy and of a British politician circa 1962, seemed to be fetishizing the bound and ball-gagged Hollow Girl. When I was a kid, we had posters of Raquel Welch and Brigitte Bardot on our walls. It wasn’t hard to imagine that posters of the rope-bound Hollow Girl were already in production somewhere in a factory in China. The world had really come to shit, hadn’t it?
I turned the sound down, and felt myself drifting off into a place where the world mattered less and where some sense of peace was still possible. When I woke up, the room was dark except for the strobing of the light from the TV. I found the bathroom, let some water out of me, and then splashed a few handfuls of cold water onto my face. I flipped on the light, trying to shake the sleep out of my head. I don’t usually wake up from a nap hungry, but I hadn’t eaten much all day. Amazing how when part of your stomach gets cut out it keeps your weight and appetite down. I found I was hungry and I wanted an excuse to escape from the TV. But when I picked up the clicker to shut the TV off, there was breaking news. I turned up the sound.
“That is correct, Mary,” the gray-bearded anchorman said, “We can confirm that Robert Allen Kaufman has been found dead in a building in an industrial park near the towns of Westbury and Garden City in Nassau County on Long Island. Our sources tell us, though we cannot confirm it as yet, that there was no sign of Siobhan Bracken, better known to the world as the Hollow Girl. Wait, we have some video from our remote crew who was out on Long Island reporting on the fierce nor’easter bearing down on the area.”
As he spoke, video came across the screen of a tan brick building, snowflakes falling furiously before the camera lens. In between the camera and the building were ambulances and squad cars, lights whirling, flashing, strobing.
“That is the building in which Kaufman’s body was found,” the anchorman continued. “We are expecting a statement from the FBI within several minutes. Garden City, as some of you will remember, was a locale hit very hard during the 9/11 attacks ….”
I stopped paying attention as I slipped into my coat. I looked at my watch: 8:43 P.M.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
As I drove, I thought I might just have to give God another chance. Without the storm, I would have been in Vermont. I would already have had dinner with Sarah and Paul and the baby. I would have helped give Ruben a bath. By now, Paul and I would be sitting around, sharing a glass of good red wine as Sarah put Ruben to bed. As we sat, I would be telling Paul stories of how his biological father, Rico Tripoli, and I used to get up to all sorts of mischief when we were in uniform together at the Six-O Precinct in Coney Island. He would be happy and sad at tales of the father he never knew, as I would be happy and sad for having known his father too well. Being human was about functioning in the face of wild contradictions. In spite of Rico having betrayed me several times in ways that might have gotten me killed, I missed him terribly—more and more as I got older. I had once been closer to him than to Aaron. Rico and I had shared things as cops and men that could not be taken back or away by all the betrayal in the world.
But there had been a storm. There was a storm. I wasn’t in Vermont, sitting around the fire with my son-in-law, drinking wine and bullshitting about how Rico and I had done this and that. Though I was missing Rico as I drove. It was easy for me to picture Rico—not the desiccated Rico who fairly drank himself to death after prison, but the Rico with the wavy black hair and twinkle in his eye—sitting in the front passenger seat next to me, laughing at me for being such a stubborn bastard. Then again, Rico always settled for the easy way, the path of least resistance, the crumbs instead of the cookie.
According to the GPS, my estimated travel time between the hotel and Farmington Falls—the town where the Johns family estate was located, according to the newspaper—was about twenty minutes. But given the ro
ad conditions and the rate at which the snow was coming down, it had taken me almost an hour. Then it took an additional few minutes to get the address out of the guy at the local gas station.
“Sure I know the Johns House,” he said. “Everybody in town knows the Johns House.”
The Johns House was the biggest Victorian in a town full of big old Victorians. There was a fancy wooden For Sale sign with engraved gold lettering posted by the stone and wrought-iron gate. The grand and fussy old lady was surrounded by a classic New England stone wall. Seeing the house they had lived in made it easy for me to picture the Johns as something out of Henry James or Poe. In spite of their fatal connection to the Hollow Girl, their lives and tragedies certainly seemed cut from the cloth of a long-ago era.
Just before I got out of Aaron’s car, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Nancy Lustig. I wasn’t mad at her for how she’d treated me. On the other hand, whatever magic there had been between us for all those years, a magic that had been enhanced in the dark of her bedroom, was gone, irretrievably gone. That was all right, I thought. Mayflies live for a few hours. Tortoises and lobsters live for hundreds of years, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not about how long, but how well. At least, that’s what I used to tell myself during chemo.
The Hollow Girl (A Moe Prager Mystery) Page 24