The Charlie Parker Collection 2

by John Connolly

  It was cold outside. The three men kept their hands thrust deep into their pockets as they walked away from Cal’s from the precinct house, from familiar faces and speculative glances. They did not stop until they came to the corner of St. Mark’s.

  ‘You remember Franklin?’ said Epstein. ‘He was the director of the Gerritsen Clinic. He retired two years ago.’

  Will nodded. He recalled the worried-looking man in the small office, part of a conspiracy of silence that he still did not fully understand.

  ‘He was killed at his home last night. Someone cut him badly to make him talk before he died.’

  ‘Why do you think that it’s something to do with us?’ said Will.

  ‘A neighbor saw a male and a female leave the house shortly after eleven. They were both young, he said: older teenagers at most. They were driving a red Ford. This morning, the offices of Dr. Anton Bergman in Pearl River were burgled. Dr. Bergman, I believe, looks after the health of your family. A red Ford was seen parked close by. It had out-of-state plates: Alabama. Dr. Bergman and his secretary are still trying to confirm what was removed, but the drug cabinets were intact. Only the patient records were rifled. Your family’s records are among those that are missing. Somehow they’ve made the connection. We didn’t hide our tracks as well as we thought.’

  Will looked pale, but still he tried to argue. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. Who are these kids?’

  It took a moment for Epstein to answer. ‘They’re the same ones who came for Caroline Carr sixteen years ago,’ he said.

  ‘No.’ It was Jimmy Gallagher. ‘Uh-uh. They’re dead. One of them got crushed by a truck, and I shot the other. I watched them pull her body from the creek. And even if they had lived, they’d be in their forties or fifties by now. They wouldn’t be children.’

  Epstein turned on him. ‘They’re not children! They’re—’ He composed himself. ‘Something is inside each of them, something much older. These things don’t die. They can’t die. They move from host to host. If the host dies, then they find another. They are reborn, over and over again.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ said Jimmy. ‘You’re out of your mind.’

  He turned to his partner for support, but none came. Instead, Will looked frightened.

  ‘Aw Jesus, you don’t believe this, do you?’ said Jimmy. ‘They can’t be the same ones. It’s just not possible.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Will. ‘They’re here, whoever they are. Franklin would have told them about how the death of the baby was covered up. I have a boy the same age as the one who was supposed to have died. They made the connection, and the medical records will confirm it. He’s right: I have to go home.’

  ‘We’ll have people looking for them too,’ said Epstein. ‘I’ve made some calls. We’re moving as fast as we can, but . . .’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘No. Go back to Cal’s.’

  ‘Why?’

  Will gripped Jimmy’s arms and looked him in the face. ‘Because I have to end this,’ he said. ‘Do you understand? I don’t want you to be caught up in it. You have to stay clean. I need you to be clean.’ Then he seemed to remember something. ‘Your nephew,’ he said. ‘Marie’s boy? He’s still with the Orangetown cops, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s out there. I don’t think he’s on duty until later, though.’

  ‘Can you call him? Just ask him to go to the house and stay with Elaine and Charlie for a while. Don’t tell him why. Just make up some excuse about an old case, maybe an ex-con with a grudge. Will you do that? Will he do that?’

  ‘He’ll do it,’ said Jimmy.

  Epstein handed Will a set of car keys.

  ‘Take my car,’ he said, pointing to an old Chrysler parked nearby. Will nodded his thanks, then began to stride away, but Epstein reached for his arm, holding him back.

  ‘Don’t try to kill them,’ said Epstein. ‘Not unless you have no other choice.’

  Jimmy saw Will nod, but his eyes were far away. Jimmy knew what Will intended to do.

  Epstein walked away in the direction of the subway. Jimmy made the call to his nephew from a phone booth. Afterwards, he went back to Cal’s where he drank and made small talk, his mind detached from the actions of his body, his mouth moving of its own volition, and he stayed there until word came that Will Parker had shot two kids up in Pearl River, and he had been found in the locker room of the Ninth, tears streaming down his face, waiting for them to come for him.

  And when they asked him why he had driven all the way back to the city, he could tell them only that he wanted to be among his own.

  23

  H e could have gone to his fellow cops, of course, but what would he have told them? That two kids were coming to kill his son; that those two kids could be hosts for other entities, malign spirits who had already killed the boy’s mother and had now returned to murder her child? Perhaps he might have concocted a lie, some tale of how they had threatened his family, or he could have fed them the information that a car resembling the one they were driving had been seen close to the director’s office after his death, and a young man and a young woman had been glimpsed leaving his house on the night that he was killed. All of that might well have been enough to hold them, assuming they were found, but he didn’t want them merely to be held: he wanted them gone forever.

  The rabbi’s warning against killing them had not gone unheeded. Instead, it had broken something inside him. He had thought that he could cope with anything – murder, loss, a child suffocated beneath a pile of coats – but now he was no longer certain that this was true. He did not want to believe what the rabbi had told him, because to do so would be to throw aside all of the certainties he felt about the world. He could accept that somebody, some agency as yet unknown, wanted his son dead. It was an appalling purpose, and one that he could not understand, but he could deal with it as long as its agents were human. After all, there was no proof that what the rabbi believed was actually true. The man and woman who had been hunting Caroline were dead. He had watched them both die, and had gazed upon their bodies after death.

  But they were different then, weren’t they? The dead are always different: smaller, somehow, and shrunken in upon themselves. Their faces change, and their bodies collapse. Over the years, he had become convinced of the existence of a human soul, if only because of the absence he witnessed in the bodies of the deceased. Something departed at the moment of death, altering the remains, and the evidence of its leaving was visible in the appearance of the dead.

  And yet, and yet . . .

  He thought back to the woman. She had been less damaged than the man in the course of her dying. The wheels of the truck had left him beyond identification, but she was physically intact apart from the holes that Jimmy’s bullets had made in her, and they had caught her in the upper body. Looking upon her face after she was pulled from the water, Parker had been astonished at the change in her. It was hard to believe that this was the same woman. The cruelty that had animated her features was gone but, more than that, her looks were softer, as though her bones had been blunted, the sharp edges removed from her cheeks and her nose and her chin. The imperfect mask that had covered her face for so long, one that was based on her own appearance yet subtly altered, had fallen away, disintegrating in the cold waters of the creek. He had looked at Jimmy and seen the same reaction. Unlike him, though, Jimmy had spoken it aloud.

  ‘It doesn’t even look like her,’ he had said. ‘I see the wounds, but it’s not her . . .’

  The crime scene guys had looked at him in puzzlement, but had said nothing. They knew that different cops responded in different ways to their involvement in fatal shootings. It was not their place to comment.

  Oh yes, something had left her as she died, but Will did not believe, or did not want to believe, that it had come back again.

  So while Jimmy Gallagher’s nephew guarded Will’s son, he drove around Pearl River, pausing at intersections to peer al
ong the cross streets, shining his flashlight on dark cars in parking lots, slowing down to stare at young couples, daring them to look back at him, for he felt sure that he would be able to identify the ones who had come for his son by the look in their eyes.

  Perhaps he had always been fated to find them. In the hours that followed, he wondered if they had been waiting for him, knowing that he would come yet certain that he would not be able to act against them. They were strangers to him, and even if the rabbi had warned him of their true nature, who could ever truly believe such a thing?

  And something would come for Epstein too, in time. It was not their purpose. It would be left to another. The rabbi could wait . . .

  And so they had not moved as his flashlight found them on the patch of waste ground not far from his home. They had seen the other man, big, red-headed, arrive at the house, and they had glimpsed the pistol in his hand. Now that they knew where the boy was, and had learned for certain the truth about his parentage, they were anxious to move against him, to finish the task they had been assigned so long before. But if they were to rush it and make a mistake, then he would be lost to them again. The red-headed man was armed, and they did not want to die, neither one nor both. They had already been separated for too long, and they loved each other. This time, the struggle to reunite had been shorter than before, but the separation had still been painful for them. The boy had been traced by another, the one called Kittim, who had whispered foul things in his ear, and the boy had known them to be true. He had traveled north, and in time, aided by Kittim, he had found the girl. Now they burned for each other, rejoicing in their physicality. Once the boy was dead, they could disappear and be together forever. They just had to be careful. They did not want to take any chances.

  And here was the boy’s father approaching; they recognized him immediately. Curious, the girl thought: the last time she had seen him was at the moment of her death. Now here he was, older and grayer, tired and weak. She smiled to herself, then leaned over and gripped the boy’s hand. He turned to look at her, and she saw an eternity of longing in his eyes.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

  ‘And I love you.’

  Will got out of the car. He had a gun in his hand, held close to his right thigh. He shone his flashlight on them. The boy raised his hand to shield his eyes.

  ‘Hey, man,’ he said. ‘What’s the deal with the light?’

  Will thought that the boy looked vaguely familiar. He was from somewhere in Rockland County, of that Will was certain, although he was a recent arrival. He seemed to recall something about juvie stuff, maybe from visiting down at Orangetown with the local cops.

  ‘Keep your hands where I can see them, both of you.’

  They did as they were told, the boy resting his palms upon the wheel, the girl placing her painted fingernails upon the dashboard.

  ‘License and registration,’ said Will.

  ‘Hey, you a cop?’ said the boy. He had a lazy drawl, and he grinned as he spoke, letting Parker know that this was all a charade, a farce. ‘Maybe you need to show me some ID first.’

  ‘Shut up. License and registration.’

  ‘Behind the visor.’

  ‘Reach up slowly with your left hand.’

  The boy shrugged but did as he was told, holding the license for the cop to see once he had retrieved it.

  ‘Alabama. You’re a long way from home.’

  ‘I’ve always been a long way from home.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Sixteen,’ he said. ‘And then some . . .’

  Will stared at him, and he saw the darkness in the boy’s eyes.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Sitting. Taking time out with my best girl.’

  The girl giggled, but it wasn’t a pretty sound. Parker thought that it sounded like something bubbling in a pot on an old stove, something that would scour you if it touched your skin.

  Parker stepped back.

  ‘Get out of the car.’

  ‘Why? We ain’t done nothing wrong.’ The tone of the boy’s voice changed, and Parker heard the adult in him come through. ‘Besides, you still ain’t shown us no ID. You might not be a cop at all. You could be a thief, or a rapist. We ain’t moving until I see a badge.’

  The boy watched as the flashlight wavered for a moment, and knew that the cop was uncertain now. He had his suspicions, but they weren’t enough to act on, and the boy was enjoying taunting him, although not as much as he would enjoy leaving him with the knowledge that he had been unable to save his son from death.

  But it was the girl who spoke, and doomed them.

  ‘So, what you gonna do, Officer Parker?’ she said, giggling.

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘How do you know my name?’

  The girl was no longer giggling. The boy licked his lips. Maybe the situation could yet be rescued.

  ‘I guess someone pointed you out to us. Lot of cops around here. Guy was naming them off to me.’

  ‘What guy?’

  ‘Someone we met. People are friendly to strangers in this town. That’s how I know who you are.’

  He licked his lips again.

  ‘And I know what you are,’ said Parker.

  The boy stared at him, and he changed. He had an adolescent’s inner rage, an inability to control himself in adult situations. Now, as the cop challenged him, the old thing inside him was revealed for an instant, a thing of ash and fire and charred flesh, a thing of transcendent beauty and untrammeled ugliness.

  ‘Fuck you, and your child,’ said the boy. ‘You have no idea what we are.’

  He turned his left wrist slightly, and the symbol on his arm was revealed to Will by the flashlight’s beam.

  And in that instant, what was fractured inside Will Parker came apart forever, and he knew that he could take no more. The first shot killed the boy, entering just above his right eye and exiting through the back of his head, burying itself in the rear seat amid blood and hair and brain matter. There was no need for a second, but Will fired one anyway. The girl opened her mouth and screamed. She leaned over and cradled the ruined head of her lover, then gazed at the one who had taken him from her again.

  ‘We’ll come back,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll keep coming back until it’s done.’

  Will said nothing. He simply lowered the gun and shot her once in the chest.

  When she was gone, he went back to his car and placed his gun on the hood. There were lights coming on in nearby porches and hallways, and he saw a man standing in his yard, looking over at the two cars. He tasted salt on his lips, and thought that he had been crying, but then the pain came and he realized that he had bitten his tongue.

  In a daze, he got back in the car and began to drive. As he passed the man in the yard, he saw recognition brighten the witness’s face, but he didn’t care. He didn’t even know where he was going until the lights of the city appeared before him, and then he understood.

  He was going home.

  They questioned him for most of that night, once they got him back to Orangetown. They told him that he was in trouble, having left the scene of a shooting, and in response he gave them the least elaborate lie that he could concoct: he had seen the car on waste ground as he was heading home, having been alerted to its presence by someone who had recognized him at an intersection, but whose name he did not know. The car had flashed its lights, and he thought that the horn might have sounded. He stopped to check that everything was okay. The boy had taunted him, pretending to reach for something inside his jacket: a weapon, perhaps. Will had warned him, and then had fired, killing the boy and the girl. After he had gone over the story for the third time, Kozelek, the investigator from the Rockland County DA’s office, had requested a moment alone with him, and the other cops, both IAD and local, had consented. When they were gone, Kozelek stopped the tape and lit a cigarette. He didn’t offer one to Will.

  ‘You weren’t driving your own car,’ sa
id Kozelek.

  ‘No, I borrowed a friend’s.’

  ‘What friend?’

  ‘Just a friend. He’s not involved. I wasn’t feeling so good. I wanted to get home as quickly as possible.’

  ‘So this friend gives you his car.’

  ‘He didn’t need it. I was going to drop it back off in the city tomorrow.’

  ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘It was used in the course of a shooting.’

  ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember much after the shooting. I just drove. I wanted to get away from it.’

  ‘You were traumatized. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘That must have been it. I never shot anybody before.’

  ‘There was no gun,’ said Kozelek. ‘We looked. They were unarmed, both of them.’

  ‘I didn’t say that they were armed. I said that I thought the boy might have been armed.’

  Kozelek drew on his cigarette and examined the man seated opposite him through the smoke. He had appeared detached from the whole process from the moment they had taken him in for questioning. It could have been shock. The IAD detectives had arrived from the city with copies of Will Parker’s service record. As he had just said, he had never killed anyone before, either officially or, from what Kozelek could ascertain, unofficially. (He had been with the NYPD himself for twenty years, and he had no illusions about such matters.) His responsibility for the shootings of the two young people would be difficult for him to accept. But that wasn’t how Kozelek read the situation: it wasn’t so much that Will Parker was in shock, but that he seemed to want the whole thing to be over and done with, like a condemned man who seeks only to be taken straight from the courtroom to his place of execution. Even his description of events, which Kozelek believed to be a lie, was halfhearted in its absence of truth. Parker didn’t care if they believed him or not. They wanted a story, and he had given them a story. If they wanted to pick holes in it, they could go right ahead and do it. He didn’t care.