The 3rd Victim

by Sydney Bauer

  ‘That would be nice,’ said Sara, taking in the words ‘nannies’ and the fact that the woman had a total of three children. Sara could not recall any detailed stories about Dudek having a large family with young children, but most of the articles she had read were from finance papers not inclined to detail a subject's family details.

  ‘My Dora,’ screamed the child yet again.

  ‘Geez, it won't kill you to share, Anna,’ said the woman.

  Sara extended her hand. ‘I'm Sara by the way, and this is Lauren.’

  ‘Keelie and Anna,’ the woman replied, taking Sara's hand and shaking it.

  And for the first time in weeks, Sara felt like the tide may have finally turned their way.

  Boston, Massachusetts

  The call had not gone well. Not well at all.

  Dick Davenport cupped his wine glass in his hand and swilled the rich red liquid in circles. It was warm in his palm, warm and somewhat mesmerising, like a whirlpool of blood folding back on itself over and over and over again until Davenport held still and the blood … the wine … started to settle.

  He was beginning to panic. His anxiety was not visible but it was there nonetheless, like an anchor at the bottom of a dark, vast ocean, holding him stationary and preventing him from moving on.

  It came down to this, he told himself as he rested back in his living room armchair and brought the pinot noir close to his lips. My wishes are at odds with the plan currently being pushed – and pushed hard – by the man I have been in partnership with for close to a decade. They were supposed to be getting out – or at least, moving to their next destination which they had decided would be Asia, considering the oriental subcontinent was a flourishing market with Hong Kong and Singapore full of wealthy expats not content with the options on their immediate doorstep. But Davenport's intentions had altered somewhat in the past twenty-four hours, which meant he may not see Asia after all. He was still keen on the move, not so much because of the potential of their intended destination but because the physical shift gave him a window to execute his plan and disappear if necessary – at least it had done until today, when he was told there was one more deal to be done.

  The timing did not suit him. Sophia was close to giving birth. And worse still, this new deal was like no other deal they had ever put together before. For the first time since they had begun their profitable project, this deal would leave them wide open to detection. It was cavalier, dangerous and, Davenport knew, driven not just by profit but by vindictiveness.

  Davenport was beginning to wonder if this whole thing had not gotten seriously out of control – Sienna and her husband, Eliza, Esther Wallace … Sophia. The issues surrounding the decisions made in regards to these individuals had already proven precarious, but this new ‘transaction’ would place them right on the precipice. He was told that Baker was nervous, that the trial was looming and that, as such, it was better to milk this location dry while the opportunities were still available to them. But there was more to this deal than that and Davenport knew it – and the fact that he was the one who had to set it up, well … the sooner he was out of here the better.

  His conscience was getting the better of him, he admitted to himself as he closed his eyes and listened to the faint melody of Haydn which he had turned down low on his Bang and Olufsen stereo. I am a physician for Christ's sakes … no – not just a physician but a creator – a man who fashions himself after God.

  His friend was showing signs of foregoing logic for spite. He was obsessed with finding the midwife, he was driven to hit Sienna and her attorney with as much firepower as he could manage and, as a consequence, Davenport felt his window of opportunity closing. The first baby was gone and if he did not move quickly he was going to lose the second. Still, he was in a holding pattern until the time came, which meant he had to go ahead with the set-up, do everything he could to try and prevent detection and put the entire deal in motion in order to give himself the best odds at pulling this whole thing off.

  It goes against everything I represent, he told himself then. But he held the wine to his mouth and drained the glass and poured another before he got to the truth of it – the fact that he, as a preserver of life, had sat back and watched destruction in the name of progress, or preservation or profit. For years now he had convinced himself that it was all about the science, but in the end that was crap.

  Joseph Haydn, 1732 to 1809, he thought to himself as he took another gulp of his wine. He got to his feet, a little wobbly but set on moving to the stereo and turning the dial all the way to the right. Born with the voice of an angel, the gift abandoned Haydn when he hit his teens and so he turned his musical genius to composing. He was the master who not only composed but created – the man who understood that it was not just about the work that you did but the ‘future’ that you fashioned – which is why he taught, why he nurtured the talents of Mozart and Beethoven – his children, his creations, the legacy he left behind.

  New York, NY

  The elongated café which sat along the back wall of Wholefoods next to the check-out bays and underneath the escalators was full. They were crammed into two semicircular booths, Sara and Lauren with Keelie and Anastasia at one table and Keelie Dudek's other two children and two very hands-on nannies at the other.

  ‘How old are they?’ asked Sara, referring to Keelie's other two children – a boy who looked slightly older than the still disgruntled Anastasia and a child who was just learning to walk.

  ‘Christian is almost three and Olivia is eleven months.’ Keelie dipped her bread roll into her bisque and ate with gusto. ‘Anna is two.’

  ‘You have three under three?’ asked Sara. ‘Gosh, I have trouble juggling the one.’

  ‘I have two nannies and two tutors, a cleaner, a cook. Anna has a private ballet teacher who charges enough to have a studio in this building, Christian has a violin teacher, a fencing coach …’

  ‘He fences at three?’

  ‘My husband likes the sport.’

  Sara nodded. ‘Wow, your children are all so …’ she looked for the right word ‘… busy. The teachers, the coaches, the tutors … and they're so young still.’

  ‘It's not about how old they are,’ said Keelie as she took a bite of her wholemeal roll. ‘At least that's what my husband believes. He says it's all about taking advantage of their formative years, about using their raw potential, and my kids, their potential is …’

  Sara stole a glance at the little boy named Christian who was currently studying some sort of number grid on his iPad. ‘They're smart,’ she said.

  Keelie nodded. ‘Off the chart.’

  ‘What, all three of them?’

  Another nod. ‘It's in their genes.’

  ‘They take after their mother,’ Sara smiled, trying to make light of what she could see was a very intense subject.

  Keelie smiled in return. ‘That's nice of you to say but I'm not their mother,’ she said, as if it was of no consequence.

  Sara shook her head in confusion.

  ‘Sorry, I'm not making sense. My kids are adopted.’

  Sara looked at Anastasia and the two children behind her. They were definitely siblings – in fact they looked so much alike it was scary. ‘You adopted three kids from the one family?’

  Keelie smiled. ‘Something like that.’ She scraped the bottom of her soup bowl with the remainder of her bread just as Anastasia reached across the table and pulled Dora from Lauren's hands. Lauren's bottom lip extended, her eyes beginning to glisten.

  Then there was a scream from the next table. ‘Give it back!’ yelled Christian. His nanny had just taken away the iPad and the boy was not happy about it.

  ‘No,’ said the nanny. ‘You're out of time, Christian. The puzzle had to be completed in under five minutes.’

  ‘The puzzle sucks,’ said Christian. But the nanny ignored him.

  ‘How do you know that Olivia is gifted?’ asked an increasingly incredulous Sara as she turned back toward he
r own table. She had no idea where this was going – but found herself compelled to play it out.

  ‘Oh, she's been tested.’

  ‘How on earth do you test an eleven month old?’

  ‘There are ways,’ said Keelie, draining her coffee before glancing at the Tiffany watch on her wrist. ‘Gotta go. I have a car waiting. My husband has a work thing tonight and I have to play handbag.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It was nice to meet you,’ she said as she got to her feet. ‘I'd say we could hook up in the park but the kids have a full weekend.’

  Sara picked up a still teary Lauren and got to her feet. She knew she had to make a move here, she just wasn't sure which move to make. ‘Your husband … if you don't mind me asking, what does he do?’

  ‘Whatever he likes,’ returned Keelie, her face serious before softening into a smile. ‘I'm sorry, that was rude. Markus works the markets.’

  ‘He's one of those guys who stands in a pit and makes shadow puppets with their hands on the wall?’ Sara played naive.

  ‘Oh lord, no. He has others do his bidding for him.’

  ‘Isn't it hard, you know, to make money after the GFC – unless you have a system or some sort of inside knowledge, or …?’

  But Keelie was shaking her head. ‘All I know is, Markus knows what he wants and goes out to get it. My husband likes things to be perfect.’ Her eyes flicked toward her children. ‘He likes to own the best, and that saying that money can't buy you everything,’ she cast another look at her kids, ‘take it from me, Sara, it's not true.’ Her brow furrowed before she managed a sad smile and ran her hands down her body in a mock gesture of ‘case in point’. ‘I'm the “new and improved” until a better model comes along. But I signed a pre-nup, so all is good.’ She shoved Anastasia into her stroller before standing to look at Sara once again. ‘You're nice,’ she said then, with a genuine smile on her face.

  Sara saw a melancholy there, a loneliness: the girl who started out with nothing and now had everything – or maybe it was the other way around.

  ‘And your kid is nice too,’ continued Keelie. ‘She has manners. I think in another life we might have been friends.’

  ‘I'm sure of it,’ said Sara. ‘It was nice to meet you, Keelie.’

  ‘Same,’ said Keelie as she gestured for the nannies to follow her.

  Sara watched as the six of them made their way toward the elevator – the Queens born and bred Keelie, her perfect brood and entourage of two. And then as she held Lauren tight in her arms she understood exactly what was happening. And it filled her with excitement and sent a chill of horror down her spine, all at the very same time.

  53

  Baltimore, Maryland

  ‘Eddie Gaedel,’ said Frank McKay as he wound down the passenger side window to let in the early morning fresh air. Frank and Joe had left Boston at eight the night before, eventually booking into a two-bit Baltimore motel at around 3 am. Their initial calls had told them that truck driver Vincent De Lorenzo was due at the Pandinski Motor Freight trucking company station at 7 am, and they wanted to catch him before he took off on another long haul to god knows where.

  Joe took a breath, still buzzing from the four satchels of Nescafé instant he had downed at the discount Step Right Inn. ‘Gaedel,’ he said, knowing there was no point in ignoring Frank's left-of-centre proclamations. ‘The name rings a bell, McKay, but …?’

  ‘He was a midget,’ said Frank.

  ‘Of course he was,’ said Joe.

  ‘A small person – three feet seven.’

  ‘And this is relevant because …?’

  ‘Gaedel was famous for his role in a Major League Baseball game in 1951. He was playing for the St Louis Browns, the team that eventually became the –’

  ‘Baltimore Orioles,’ said Joe, understanding there was some, if only a very loose, connection between their current whereabouts and Frank's soon-to-be-revealed story.

  Frank nodded. ‘Gaedel was hired by the Browns' owner, Bill Veeck, to pop out of a papier-mâché cake between games of a double-header to celebrate the American League's fiftieth anniversary. He was wearing pixie slippers and a Browns uniform with the fraction “1/8” on his back – you know, as a publicity stunt, to entertain the crowd. Anyways, what the crowd didn't know was that Veeck had bigger plans for the small man – he'd signed him two days before as a player for the Browns.’

  ‘The midget played in the Major Leagues?’ said a now confused Joe.

  Frank nodded. ‘Against the Detroit Tigers. Gaedel entered the game at the last minute as a pinch hitter for lead-off batter Frank Saucier, and as you'd expect, the umpire and the Tigers' boss immediately had a fit. But Veeck produced Gaedel's contract and Gaedel was allowed to take the bat.’

  ‘The midget hit the ball,’ said Joe as he took a right onto the freeway, making his way south toward De Lorenzo's trucking station.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Veeck told Gaedel to hold that bat tight to his shoulder – not to take a swing. Even said he'd be up in the stands with a rifle if Gaedel even thought about trying to hit the goddamned ball.’ Frank shook his head with a smile. ‘Anyways, as you might have guessed, the pitcher had all sorts of trouble trying to pitch the ball into Gaedel's strike zone, which was only one and a half inches. So Gaedel plays like a statue, the catcher is on his knees, the pitcher pitches four balls and –’

  ‘The balls are all high so the midget takes a walk,’ said Joe, who could not help but match Frank's smile.

  ‘Makes his way to first where he was replaced by pinch-runner Jim Delsing.’

  ‘That has to be illegal,’ said Joe.

  ‘Would be now. In fact, as a result of Gaedel's appearance, all contracts must now be approved by the Commissioner of Baseball before a player can appear in a game.’

  ‘It's a good story, Frank,’ grinned Joe. ‘You pull that one out every time you pass through Baltimore?’ he asked.

  ‘Baltimore made me remember the story, Chief, but it seems to me you and I could learn a thing or two from this Eddie Gaedel.’

  Joe started to see it. ‘The little guy was a surprise?’ he guessed, trying to think like Frank. ‘He got in and did what he had to do before drifting back into obscurity?’

  ‘Never took the field again,’ confirmed Frank.

  ‘So you're saying we should play this thing with De Lorenzo all subtle-like.’

  ‘Might be a good idea not to scare the guy off – just walk up, introduce ourselves all police-like, but then stand still, let him do the talking and see where it goes.’

  ‘You're saying this guy might be able to take us to first base, but pushing him any further could be a mistake.’

  ‘He knows what he knows or what he doesn't, and nothing we can say or do will change that. The less we push the more chance we have of getting away with this under the radar.’

  ‘Like how Gaedel stole that base after crouching under the pitcher's ball.’

  ‘That's what I was thinking, Chief.’

  A grateful Joe smiled again. ‘You got one of these stories for every city in America, Frank?’ he asked as he took the exit and backtracked toward where the directory told him Pandinski's Motor Freight would be.

  ‘Offhand I'd say no – but I do tend to collect this stuff.’

  ‘I hadn't noticed,’ grinned Joe.

  *

  Joe was right. This morning was one for humility.

  In fact, as they sat on the clean but somewhat threadbare red fabric sofa, Joe and Frank could not help but feel humbled by the twenty-odd pairs of eyes now looking down on them from every angle in the neat but dated living room.

  Joe counted seven statues of Jesus and four of the Virgin Mary – add to that at least nine pictures, holy cards and paintings, and Vincent De Lorenzo and his wife Camilla had a regular shrine happening in their south-eastern Baltimore home, including a clock made out of a china plate from Rome – it had a picture of Pope Paul VI on it, who the lapsed-Catholic Joe recalled was about t
hree or four Popes ago.

  ‘We are sorry to disturb you like this,’ said Joe after a hospitable Camilla De Lorenzo had set a tray of hot tea and blueberry scones in front of them.

  ‘Oh there's no need to apologise,’ said Camilla, who, since they had come to the door less than three minutes earlier had managed to rush to the bedroom and change out of her housecoat and into a lavender polka dot dress. Her husband Vincent, who she called Vinnie, had barely moved from his position on the checkered living room armchair, his face tired, his manner depleted, detached.

  ‘It's not often Vinnie and I get visitors. Vinnie,’ she turned to her husband after pouring Joe and Frank their tea, ‘these nice policemen have come all the way from Boston.’

  Her eyes met her husband's then, and in that moment Joe saw a myriad of emotions pass over Camilla De Lorenzo's pale brown eyes – love, concern, regret, pity, hope, fear.

  Vincent De Lorenzo nodded. ‘I'm sorry you went all the way to the trucking station. I was meant to be in at seven, but I've been sick – influenza. The long hauls through winter end up taking their toll.’

  Joe glanced at Camilla De Lorenzo, who looked as nervous as a mouse in a barn full of cats.

  ‘Vinnie's had to miss a bit of work lately,’ she said, perhaps wondering if her husband's boss – a Mr Seymour Pandinski – had told them as much. ‘Did you talk to Mr Pandinski?’ she asked, obviously needing to know the worst of it.

  Joe nodded. ‘He mentioned your husband had had a time of it,’ he said, stealing a glance at Frank, who gave him the slightest of nods. Joe turned to Vincent. ‘We can only imagine how hard this has been for you Mr De Lorenzo, what with Mr Walker losing his life the way that he did. But from what I am hearing, none of it was your fault. Mr Walker swerved right in front of you. It was an unfortunate case of wrong place, wrong time. And we completely understand that you –’

  ‘No offence, Detective,’ said Vincent De Lorenzo, the sweat circles on his wife beater creeping that much further around his chest. ‘I know you policemen have got a job to do, but I gave my statement to the Baltimore police – so I am not sure why two detectives from Boston would be …?’