The Anniversary Man

by R.J. Ellory

  Somewhere he had her home number, and could anyway have easily located it from any number of sources, but he did not. Perhaps he didn′t really wish to speak with her. Perhaps he only wished it to be seen that he′d had the thought, that he′d made the effort, for if she′d answered he wouldn′t have known what to say.

  Tonight. After midnight tonight. If we′re even close to right he′s gonna go out there tonight and kill six people . . .

  And what would she have said in return?

  Ray Irving paced the office. He′d had a bank of telephones installed the previous day, a separate receiver for every two precincts within the city limits. Detectives Gifford and Hudson would man the desk, and there were four uniforms available for any additional assistance required. Black-and-whites city-wide were on alert, and an individual frequency had been allocated to the Fourth Precinct as control center. There were so many variables, so many unknowns. There were too many possibilities, too many potential errors human and otherwise, that Irving couldn′t bear even to consider all that could go wrong. Right now, even as he paced back and forth between the window and the door, cursing Gifford and Hudson, who were already twelve minutes late, six people might be dead somewhere. The killings, if they were going to happen at all, could already have occurred. He had studied the Amityville case endlessly: The appearance of the eldest son, Ronald ′Butch′ DeFeo, in Henry′s Bar around six-thirty, evening of November 13th, 1974, shouting, ′You′ve got to help me! I think my mother and father are shot′, all the way to his final confession the following day with the words ′Once I started, I just couldn′t stop. It went so fast.′ Aside from obtaining copies of the original case notes, Irving had read everything he could find about the murders themselves. Trying to understand perhaps, trying to isolate something that would give him some indication of how, or why, or where. He had found nothing, nothing that made his task any easier or less complex.

  And so he paced the room, and he waited for Hudson and Gifford, and the bank of telephones sat silently, anticipatorily, and Ray Irving carried such heaviness in his heart.

  Eight minutes after Frances finally resigned herself to the confines of her bedroom, Jean and Howard Allen sat in their kitchen and looked at one another expectantly. There was a matter of significance to discuss, and neither wished to broach the subject. Jean′s mother, a difficult woman at the very best of times, a widow for eleven years, fiercely independent and even now somewhat disapproving of her daughter′s choice in husbands, was awaiting the results of a biopsy. Current indications did not bode well. She had lost weight, a considerable amount in the last three months alone, and twice she had experienced a funny turn, once in the shopping mall, a second time at Sunday dinner in the Allens′ house.

  Now, finally, that Sunday evening, Jean said, ′If it turns out to be positive, you know we′ll have to take her in.′

  Howard said nothing.

  ′That house is way too big, Howard. She should have sold it after Dad died—′

  ′I don′t think she′ll want to come,′ Howard said, all too aware of the fact that such a comment meant nothing.

  ′I know that she won′t want to come. That′s never been a question. She′ll have to come. We′ll have to make her see that she doesn′t have a choice.′

  ′There′s always the other possibility—′

  ′No way am I having her put in a home, Howard. Besides, there′s no way in the world that we could afford it—′

  ′The house?′ Howard ventured, knowing that he was walking on thin ice, running to be more accurate, and running with heavy steps, as if he was trying to break through to the dark and icy water and drown himself in shame and ignominy for suggesting such a thing.

  ′I am not selling the house where I grew up to pay for my mother to go into a nursing home, and you know she′d never agree to such a thing. Jesus, Howard, sometimes I wonder whether you actually care for her at all.′

  Howard, skillful at tempering the frayed edges that appeared every once in a while in their relationship, reached out his hand and closed it over Jean′s. He smiled warmly, the kind of smile that reminded Jean that here was a good man, a real man, a man with a heart and a head and a strong sense of what was right. A man she was right to have married. Fifteen years they′d been together, and through that decade and a half Howard had weathered the sniping comments, the little digs, the sly criticisms couched as constructive ideas, volleyed by Jean′s mother, Kathleen Chantry. For Kathleen had standards, standards higher than any man might reach and, unaware that such an individual could ever walk the face of the earth, she believed that Jean had short-changed herself by marrying Howard Allen. Howard, with his commitment to his work, his extraordinary patience with his children, and his tireless devotion and unfailing fidelity to his wife who, from the light in his eyes when he looked at her, knew that she would always be loved unconditionally . . .

  Jean and Howard had been born good people, and they would die that way.

  By ten Irving was convincing himself that they had interpreted the letter incorrectly. He questioned the validity of his assumption, and tried to forget how Farraday had finally nailed him down long enough to explain why he′d come to such a conclusion.

  ′You can′t be serious. Jesus, Ray, a bunch of whacko murder victims . . . and you showed them the letter?′

  And whatever Irving had said, however he tried to explain why he′d done it, there was no forgiveness from Farraday. But by then it was too late. The project had already been three days forward. Farraday had made Irving swear that such information would never reach Ellmann. He could only begin to imagine what Ellmann would have to say about the quality of Fourth Precinct leadership if it was known that the most time-consuming and expensive police operation in the last three years was based on a supposition made in a hotel room by five serial-killer survivors. Farraday, much to Irving′s relief, didn′t mention it again, and when Farraday himself appeared in the incident room that Sunday night, when he stood beside Irving for a good ten or fifteen minutes, saying nothing, perhaps willing one of the telephones to ring just to end the terrible sense of apprehension, Irving was somehow reassured. Farraday, above and beneath all else, was a policeman. Always had been, always would be, and his sense of duty lay with the people of New York far more than it did with the politicians.

  ′Nothing?′ Farraday said.

  Irving shook his head.

  ′Let′s hope it stays that way.′

  And then there was silence once again.

  Which, as silences went, was not entirely dissimilar to the one in the Allen house. A respite from discussion of matters capable of generating tension, a brief hiatus within which Jean and Howard faced one another across the kitchen table, comfortable in one another′s presence, appreciating each other′s viewpoints sufficiently well to understand that such an issue as Kathleen Chantry would never resolve in one evening.

  ′Let′s wait for the results,′ Howard said, and once again smiled that smile and held Jean′s hand reassuringly.

  She nodded, feeling that if she spoke further she might end up crying, and tonight she didn′t want to cry, tonight she wanted to get to bed early and get a good night′s sleep, for tomorrow she would visit her mother and start the long and slow process of dealing with the woman′s resistance to any sort of change. For change was coming - it was inevitable.

  She glanced at the wall clock above the stove. ′It′s ten already,′ she said. ′I want some tea . . . you want some?′

  ′Earl Grey,′ Howard said. ′I′ve got to type up a quote for tomorrow.′

  ′How long?′

  ′Fifteen minutes?′

  Jean held out her hand and touched Howard′s cheek. ′And then,′ she said, ′you can take me to bed and read me a story.′

  ′Oh, I′ll read you a story all right,′ Howard replied suggestively, and rose from his chair and stepped behind her. For a moment he gripped her shoulders, and then he leaned forward and kissed the top of her head.

>   ′So get going,′ she said. ′Any more than fifteen minutes and I won′t play.′

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  The feeling that assaulted Ray Irving′s nerves when the telephone rang was indescribable.

  He had foreseen the moment, had imagined so many things - his reaction, what would be reported at the other end of the line, the way his heart would jump suddenly, kick-started as if wired to a car battery - but nothing could have prepared him for the sheer rush of adrenalin that assaulted his body.

  Vernon Gifford snatched the receiver up, barked into the mouthpiece, was already standing as he listened, and Irving was almost running across the ten or so feet to the desk.

  ′East 35th and Third, East 35th and Third,′ Gifford was saying over and over again, and Hudson was already on the other line, a single-number speed dial that connected him to the central switchboard, and the details went through, and even as Gifford dropped the receiver and started toward the door, even as Irving went after him, shouting behind him that Hudson should stay on the desk, field any other calls, insure that black-and-whites were on the way, Irving could feel the punch of the thing . . .

  Three risers from the bottom of the well he almost lost his footing, felt something twist in his ankle, but there was no pain at all, nothing that even registered beyond the urgency, the panic, the need to be outside, in a car, speeding toward East 35th and Third from where the report had come.

  It was one of the families. One of the families they had spoken to. Two parents, four kids, and a call had been made, a 911 call . . . someone had been seen in the back yard of the property.

  Irving had his keys in his hand, was jerking the car door open as Gifford slammed the passenger door behind him. Leaving a scorched arc of rubber on the asphalt they pulled away from the curb, siren wailing, roof-light flashing, Irving weaving his way into and through the traffic that seemed to fold away before him as if it understood.

  Twenty or so blocks south east, heart out of control, images flashing through his mind, palms sweating, pulse in his temple, in his neck, guts all churned up, feeling that this had to be it, this had to be it . . .

  Even the lights stayed green - not that it would have mattered with three black-and-whites matching his speed from Herald Square, a blaze of cherry-blues following him, people pulling over to the side to let them pass.

  Irving floored the car, peaked at eighty-five, had to slow as they reached the Park Avenue corner, and then they were away again.

  Gifford said something, had the handset, was keeping a dialogue going with central, but Irving didn′t even hear him.

  Ray Irving could think of nothing but those words from Ronald DeFeo: Once I started, I just couldn′t stop. It went so fast.

  Howard wrestled with his quote for ten minutes and then gave up. He wanted to go with the Philly supplier, but the Japanese were so much cheaper. If he went with Philly he′d get a shorter delivery lead, but he′d pay an extra two and a half cents per unit. Two and a half cents across a one hundred and seventy thousand-unit order made a difference of more than four thousand dollars. That was enough of a difference to hurt either his own profit margin, or the customer′s confidence if they checked manufacturer prices. It was one of those situations where you just decided on a hunch and went with it.

  Howard shut down his computer just as Jean called from the top of the stairs.

  He went through the ground floor, checked the windows and doors, switched off all the lights and left the place in complete darkness aside from the green glow from the digital clock on the stove. He paused for a moment at the base of the stairs. Things could be one hell of a lot worse than this, he thought to himself. We′re okay. He put his hand on the banister just as the faint wail of sirens echoed from somewhere in the distance, and made his way up to bed.

  A total of seventeen uniformed officers descended on an address at the corner of East 35th and Third at precisely ten forty-eight p.m. Taking the lead were Detectives Ray Irving and Vernon Gifford. Central Dispatch had maintained a constant telephone dialogue with the family inside - Mom and Dad, the four kids - all of them locked in the master bedroom. They had been instructed not to leave the room under any circumstances, not until they received word from Dispatch that the police were in the house, that the entire property had been searched and given the all-clear by the detective in charge of the operation, Ray Irving. The father, Gregory Hill, assured the operator that leaving the bedroom was the very last thing in the world they would do. His wife, Laura, the children, Peter, Mark, Justin and Tiffany - the youngest four, the oldest eleven - stayed still and silent and scared while Gregory whispered to the operator, was constantly reassured by her that everything was under control, that the police officers knew precisely what they were doing, that all would be well.

  The operator, a seventeen-year police dispatch veteran called Harriet Miller, could not have been more right. Her measured voice, her calm and supremely confident delivery of instructions, saw the Hill family through the very worst hour of their collective lives. And Desmond Roarke - a twenty-seven-year-old opportunist thief, housebreaker and small-time fence, already on parole for three counts of attempted credit card fraud and wanted for questioning in relation to an outstanding grand theft auto investigation - perhaps believed that God truly had it in for him. As he came down from the roof of the Hill′s garage, in his hand a small black carry-all containing a box-cutter, a flashlight, a tire iron wrapped in a hand-towel, two pairs of surgical gloves, a roll of duct tape and a thirty-foot length of nylon cord, the combined brilliance of a dozen police arc lights illuminated him starkly against the night sky. Desmond Roarke lost his footing, dropped his carry-all, and came skidding down the tiles, saved from dropping a good fifteen feet to the concrete patio beneath by sheer good luck. Somehow he managed to anchor himself flat on his back, his heels on the edge of the guttering, both hands clawing desperately for purchase. And that was where he stayed until three officers stood beneath him, guns trained unerringly, Irving commanding him to lie still, not to move a muscle, to remain exactly and precisely where he was until ladders were fetched. The ladders came within minutes, and Desmond Roarke, having already urinated through his jeans, was brought down from the garage roof to the most anticipatory reception he was ever likely to experience.

  By eleven-thirty they had Roarke′s name and had run it through the police computer. They knew who he was, had a very certain idea of why he was there, though this in itself would provide a far more significant revelation in the coming hours. The Hill family had been rescued from the confines of the master bedroom. Gregory Hill had spoken with the police, had seen Vernon Gifford, had been reassured that all was well and life could return to how it had been before this nightmare had unfolded. There would always be a shadow, of course, but at the same time an awareness that what might have happened that night could have been a lot worse.

  Ray Irving knew with certainty that Desmond Roarke was not their man, and he also knew why. It was not yet midnight. It was not yet the 13th of November. In the confusion and panic of the moment, the belief that perhaps their many hundreds of hours of work might finally be paying off, that there was a family here that had been saved from a terrible catastrophe, they had overlooked the simple fact that the Anniversary Man was just that. The Anniversary Man.

  The Amityville killings had taken place on the 13th, not the 12th.

  And Ray Irving, who had forgotten that he had been waiting on midnight, stood looking out from the back lot of the house, insensible to the bitter cold, unaware that his eyes were watering involuntarily from the icy breeze that had wound its way through the city, and knew that they did not possess a prayer.

  Howard Allen lay awake beside his sleeping wife. He loved the feeling of her naked body beside him. Four children, fifteen years of marriage, grey hairs, laughter lines, and still there was no-one who came close to Jean. They shared a quiet passion borne not out of intense sexual attraction, but out of familiarity. They were familiar to one another
. Each knew what the other liked. She knew what made him crawl the walls. He knew what made her claw holes in the bedsheets. It was good that way, and he didn′t wish for any other.

  Howard Allen glanced at the bedside clock. Eleven fifty-six. He was tired, overtired perhaps, and though making love usually led him into deep sleep within fifteen minutes, he was still wired about the business. He smiled at the pun, tried to focus on the difficulty, but his mind wandered, and tomorrow was Monday, it was a new week, and perhaps he would call the client and have a heart-to-heart about lead times versus shaving two and a half cents off a unit. Maybe the guy would be patriotic enough to screw the two and a half-cent saving and keep the work in the States. Howard smiled at the thought, and closed his eyes.

  He heard a sound, something like a greenstick twig snapping beneath the pressure of a boot, but he was already on his way, floating into sleep, for the bed was warm, and Jean was beside him, and the kids were out for the count.

  ′Says he wasn′t trying to steal anything,′ Gifford told Irving. ′Says he was paid by someone to break into the house and look for evidence.′

  Irving frowned. ′You what?′

  They were seated in Irving′s car, doors open, still there on East 35th, no more than twenty yards from the house. ′Paid by someone to look for evidence?′

  Gifford nodded. ′That′s what he said.′

  ′Paid by whom? Evidence of what?′

  ′He won′t say.′

  Irving shook his head. ′This is bullshit. Jesus . . .′ He sighed, looked out at the house once more, and then pulled the car door to.

  ′We′re going back to the Fourth,′ he said. ′He′s not our guy, we know that much at least. You take him back and book him, get some more specifics on this story if you can, and let me know what the deal is. I have to stay on this thing.′