by Blake Banner
“Nicely put.”
“Thanks, I’ve been working on it.”
“There is another parallel which I think is important.”
“Another one?”
“What you called the parallel victim. There is one in each case.”
“No, it’s too bizarre, Stone. There is no way of explaining that unless you start getting into all kinds of esoteric crap, karma, synchronicity… I mean, just what exactly are you driving at, Stone?”
I laughed. “Well, karma and synchronicity might explain a few things, Dehan, but I don’t think we need go that far.”
“What then? Are you saying the same person who killed Cherise killed the kids? We’ve been over that already.”
I didn’t answer. Something was nagging at the back of my mind. I said, “Where did Cherise work?”
“Kmart, on the till and stacking shelves.”
“What about Sonia, where does she work?”
“I’ve no idea. What’s her surname?”
“She’s not married, so it’ll be the same as…” I reached for my copy of the file, but Dehan was already saying, “Laplant, Sonia Laplant.”
She dropped her file and rattled at the keys of her laptop. I read from my own notes: “One hundred, Elder Avenue.”
She typed some more, her eyes scanned the screen. “She works at the Bronx Rehabilitation Clinic, on Underhill Avenue. Why is that significant?”
“I don’t know. It’s a five-minute walk from Kmart. And isn’t Elder Avenue pretty close to the Browns’ house?”
“Uh… Wheeler Avenue, one twenty-six, yeah, just round the corner. Talk to me, Stone. What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. When I find out you’ll be the first to know.”
“That’s funny, but not helpful. It’s actually not all that funny, either.”
“We need to talk to Sonia again. She’s told us half the story. We need the rest.”
“Shall I call her at the clinic?”
“No, let’s drop in unannounced.”
It was less than a five-minute drive to the Bronx Rehabilitation Clinic, east along the Bruckner Boulevard and then over the White Plains overpass. The clinic was a six-storey, redbrick cube set in its own leafy parking lot, with a blue awning over the door. It was subtle, but something about it said it didn’t cater to Bronx junkies. It catered rather to those residents of the borough who would have lived in Manhattan if they hadn’t been priced out.
We pushed through the glass doors and crossed a parquet floor to a high-gloss mahogany reception desk. There was a middle-aged woman behind it with huge brown eyes and very full, very red lips. She made a question with her face, brushed it with a smile and waited.
Dehan leaned on the desk. “We’d like to see Sonia Laplant.”
She did something in her throat that sounded amused, like “Hnnn…,” and then added, “No can do, sweetheart. She ain’t here. She gone out with Dr. Garrido.”
Dehan showed her her badge and told her who she was. “When will they be back?”
“I have no idea, sugar. She’s Dr. Garrido’s PA, and he takes her most everywhere. Know what I’m sayin’? He’s gone to buy some paintings for his office, and she’s gone to help. Maybe she got a degree in art. I couldn’t tell you.”
“You know what gallery they’ve gone to?”
“Oh, I can tell you that. I got the brochure right here somewhere…” She pulled open a drawer and rifled through the contents. “Some place in Manhattan.” She pulled out a glossy booklet and dropped it on the counter in front of Dehan. Dehan read out the name, “The Searching I Gallery, I spelt with an ‘I,’ not E-Y-E. Broadway and West 85th…” She paused, reading, then, “Opposite the French Roast restaurant.”
I made eye contact with the receptionist and smiled. “Dr. Garrido is an art collector?”
She returned me the kind of smile that says, You can believe that if you like, and said, “Dr. Garrido likes anything beautiful, even if it is a little old.”
Dehan snorted, we thanked her and left.
It was a twenty-five-minute drive via the George Washington Bridge and the Henry Hudson Parkway and then south to Broadway and West 85th. The Searching I Gallery was an ugly, gray, one-storey cube that had been cruelly tacked on to a row of elegant, 19th-century brownstones opposite a French restaurant on the corner of Broadway. We found a place to park and walked, hunched into our shoulders, to the gallery entrance. The shadows were growing long in the copper light as we pushed in.
Near the entrance I saw Sonia standing with two men. One of them was by her side. He was of medium height and build, on the dapper side of elegant in an Italian suit, with expensively cut black hair swept back from his face. She was in a cream white suit, with a string of pearls around her neck.
Facing them both was a tall, willowy man in torn Armani jeans, with thick curly hair and a nose like a beak. He was gesturing extravagantly as he spoke, and wasn’t aware—or didn’t care—that his audience looked bored. Beside them were a couple of sculptures of unidentifiable shape positioned on stands, and hanging on the walls were canvases with pieces of mannequins attached to them, all with their eyes extracted and the sockets painted black. A large glossy sign by the door said that this was an exhibition by Zack Fuks, entitled Blind Faith.
As we approached the small group, the man I assumed was Zack Fuks was saying, “I adored her. It was an insane, wild, searching passion. I could not get enough of her. Truly? I think I burned her out, from the inside out. I was too much for her and she could not take it. I used to call her my faith. My Faith. But she was completely ignorant of the meaning of our relationship. Do you understand? She could not see how our union of flesh and soul would lead to the fruition of my art. In the end, when she had nothing more to give me, she left. It destroyed me, but in my spiritual death, my art was born. That is why I call this exhibition, Blind Faith. Who are you?”
This last was directed, with an arched eyebrow, at Dehan. Sonia was watching me with some alarm. I smiled at her.
“Hello, Sonia. I am sorry to interrupt you here, but there are some questions we need to ask you about your sister.”
The guy who was obviously Dr. Garrido was frowning at us. “What is this? Who are you?”
I showed him my badge. “New York Police Department, sir. I am Detective Stone, this is my partner, Detective Dehan. We just need a few minutes of Ms. Laplant’s time.”
He turned to Sonia with a face like a pay cut. “What is this about, Sonia?”
“My sister,” she said it like an apology. “I told you about her, and her son…”
He turned to me and his expression had become incredulous. “You couldn’t have found a better time?”
Dehan answered before I could open my mouth. She said, “We got the memo.”
Garrido’s frown deepened. “What?”
“The memo from the mayor, that said all homicide investigations in New York should be adapted so as not to interfere with Dr. Garrido’s private life. You want me to tell you what we did with that memo? Or if you bend over, maybe I can demonstrate.”
Zack Fuks placed his hands to his cheeks and gasped. Garrido’s face flushed crimson. He opened his mouth to speak but Dehan shut it for him. “Tell it to somebody who gives a damn, Doc. Two children were murdered, we’re not going to pussyfoot around for your convenience. Live with it.”
I turned to Sonia. “Can we talk to you, Sonia? We’ll be as brief as we can.”
She turned to Garrido. “I’m very sorry, Dr. Garrido…”
He scowled at us, then nodded at Sonia. “Of course.”
She followed us outside onto Broadway and we crossed West 85th to the French Roast restaurant as the sun was dipping below the tops of the buildings. We went inside, found a table by the window and sat. A cute, blonde waitress joined us, smiling like she was really pleased to see us. She told us her name was Tracy and she would be our waitress today. We ordered three mineral waters and she told us we could scan the code on the
table to get a menu on our cell phones.
When she’d gone away I studied Sonia’s face for a while.
“Sonia, there are some things I don’t really understand.”
“What,” she said and hesitated, “what sort of things?”
I leaned back in my chair and made a show of staring out at West 85th and drumming my fingers on the table. Then I held her eye and nodded. “Quite a lot of things. About the blackmail, the messages he sent you, his relationship with the Mitchells.” I laughed. “The whole thing just doesn’t seem to hang together.” I sat forward and leaned my elbows on the table. “But what I am really interested in right now is exactly what happened on the day of your sister and Earl’s murder.”
“Well, it was just like I told you.”
I shook my head. “No, Sonia, it wasn’t.”
Her skin took on a sickly hue. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I looked down at my hands and sighed, drummed a little more and said, “We know, Sonia…” I looked up. Her eyes were wide. Her face was rigid. I waited but she didn’t ask. “We know there was somebody else in the house at the time of the murder.”
Her eyes flicked over my features. She glanced at Dehan. She was like a trapped animal frozen by panic. Finally she said, “How…?”
I gave a small laugh and shook my head. “See? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. It seems to me that the question you would logically want to ask is, ‘Who?’ But you don’t ask that. You ask, ‘How?’”
She closed her eyes. “You’re trying to confuse me and make me say things…”
Dehan said, “What kind of things, Sonia?”
Her eyes snapped open and she pointed at me, echoing my own words. “See? This, this is what Leroy used to talk about. Always pin the blame on the black person.”
I asked, “Who’s pinning blame on you, Sonia?”
“You’re trying to trip me up and confuse me, and make me say things that you can use against me.”
I gave my head a single shake. “All I’m doing, Sonia, is telling you that we know there was somebody else in the house when Cherise and Earl were killed.” She swallowed. I went on. “Now you have taken that and run, and become very anxious, which makes me curious. And I would like to know what made you ask, ‘How?’ How what? How did we find out? Is that what you were asking?”
“No…maybe.” She closed her eyes again. “I was shocked. I didn’t expect…”
Dehan spoke softly. “I think you half expected it, Sonia. When you saw us come in.”
“No…”
I interrupted her. “Here’s another thing that I don’t understand, Sonia. That photograph, the one you showed me of Brad Mitchell with Dr. Wagner. What I don’t understand about that is why you didn’t react exactly the way the Mitchells did when Leroy showed it to them.” She didn’t answer. She just stared at me. “You know what they did? Brad called his wife, and they laughed. They laughed in Leroy’s face.” I shook my head. “Why didn’t you do that, Sonia?”
She frowned, gave her shoulders a small shrug. “I was worried. He’s my nephew. I didn’t want him falling into bad ways…”
I snorted. “You were that close?”
“We were very close!”
I barked a loud laugh. “C’mon! You were his aunt! You probably saw him once a month!”
Her face flushed and her eyes were bright. “That is not true! I saw him most every day!”
“For what?”
She leaned forward now, real angry now. “Because Cherise had no car at that time, and I would take her to work and the kids to school…”
“The kids were not at school that day.”
“Because that bastard Earl said he wanted to keep them off. He said they were not well.”
Dehan’s voice was heavy with irony. “And you and Cherise thought that was normal?”
“No! We did not! And that is exactly why she called me from work and said she was worried. She wanted to go back and check on them!”
I leaned forward. “And you told her not to worry. They would be fine. You left them in the care of that…”
She was shaking her head furiously. “No! No! No! No! I had told her from the start that she should never leave them alone with him! I had told her over and over that that man was dangerous! He was hurting those children. I’ll tell you what I did. I told Dr. Garrido that I had to go out for the afternoon and I went and got her and took her….”
She trailed off, but it was too late. I sighed and sat back in my chair. Dehan said quietly, “So there was another person in the house, Sonia.”
She closed her eyes and echoed my gesture, sinking back in her seat. The smiling waitress came and distributed glasses and bottles of Perrier.
“Have you had a chance to look at the menu?”
I looked at her. “Just give us a few minutes.”
She bobbed and went away. I turned back to Sonia. “You took her home and you both went in together…”
“No!” She shook her head furiously. “I left her there. She got down from the car and I left. I had to get back to work…”
“Come on, Sonia! Time for the truth! You just got through telling us you told Garrido you’d be out for the afternoon. And you did that because, after eight years of this guy, you both knew him and suspected what was going on. That being the case, there is no way you would have allowed her to go in alone. It’s over, Sonia. It is time to tell the truth. What happened that day?”
Nine
“They were really hard up. Earl hadn’t worked for a long time. He made money selling weed, but he kept that for himself. They had sold the car and every morning I went and collected her from their house, or she’d walk to my place. It was literally just around the corner. She worked at Kmart, and that was like two minutes from where I work, so I would sometimes drive over and we’d have lunch together. We always got on, even when we were small. She was a year older than me,” she smiled, “but we always used to joke that I was the older sister. Usually I’d pay for lunch, and always we’d talk about the same thing, her relationship with Earl, how it was hurting the kids, how she should leave him…”
She sighed and shook her head.
“We even talked about getting a place together, but it never happened. A few times I would show her places we could afford, send her links by e-mail. I was prepared to pay more than half of the rent just to get her away from that bastard. But I don’t know if it was codependency, fear, addiction… I refuse to believe it was love. Nobody could love a man like that. Whatever it was, she could not let go of him.
“For a year, maybe more, before he died, she had started confessing to me that she was scared he was abusing the kids when he was alone with them.”
Dehan asked, “Did she say what kind of abuse she suspected?”
“I asked her, but she said she wasn’t sure. The kids seemed to be scared of him. He was a violent bully, with women and children. He would punish them, hit them, shout at them…” She trailed off, then said, “I asked if she suspected sexual abuse. She said no, but I could tell by her face, by her eyes, that she had thought about it. It was…” She paused, staring out at the bright, cold street. “It was depressing, hopeless, struggling day after day, week after week…year after year, and realizing all along that the person I was fighting, the person I was struggling against was not Earl. It was Cherise. She was the person who was creating all the obstacles, making all the excuses. And all the while I was aware that a disaster, a catastrophe, was coming closer. It was as inevitable as the setting of the sun. As hopelessly unavoidable as nightfall.”
She fell silent. We waited. Eventually I asked her, “What happened that day, Sonia?”
“I picked her up from home. When she came out alone I asked her, what about the kids? She said they were not well and Earl was keeping them home. I knew, by the way she said it, that she was worried sick. She was drawn, sickly, had bags under her eyes. I told her, let’s take them to the doctor, but she said no, Earl wou
ld only get mad. It was best just to leave them. So we left and I took her to work.”
She stared at me with wide eyes, then looked at Dehan. “I couldn’t work. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I was just sick to my stomach all the while. And I guess Cherise was the same because just before ten she called me. She was crying. She says, ‘Sonia, I am going crazy. I am so worried about Shevron and Leroy. I think Earl is doing something bad to them. I think he’s hurting my babies.’ So I told her to hold tight, I was coming to get her. I told Dr. Garrido that I had a family crisis and I went to get her.”
Dehan asked her, “He was understanding about that?”
“He is a very good man. He was very understanding and told me to take as long as I needed. I collected her from the parking lot and we drove back to her place.” She stopped again and took a very deep breath. “I will never forget, as long as I live… I will never forget what I felt when she opened that door. You cannot imagine, unless you have experienced something like that, you cannot begin to imagine the sickening horror. I still remember, my skin went cold.” She searched our faces by turns, seeking some sign that we might understand. “I felt sick. Hollow in my stomach. Your mind tries to tell you this cannot be real, but it is. He was there…” She gestured with her open hand, as though we could see what she was seeing in her mind. “He was there on the sofa, with Shevron, and Leroy was watching them.”
“What happened?”
She sighed. “It was pretty much how the detective figured it. I was so stunned I didn’t realize for a while what was happening. Cherise ran for the kitchen. She was hysterical, screaming. Earl kind of fell off the sofa, pulling up his pants. Then Cherise was there again, come out of the kitchen, crazy, with a big knife in her hand. I remember I screamed and told the kids to come to me. Cherise and Earl started fighting and Earl hit Cherise. She was so crazy she didn’t seem to notice, but he kept hitting her. And I was shouting to the kids to come to me, but they were just staring at their mom and Earl.