Saints Of New York

by R.J. Ellory

  Five feet from the box he put on latex gloves. He felt the first few spots of rain and inwardly cursed.

  'Jimmy!' he called back down the alley. 'You wanna get a couple of torches and a tarpaulin from somewhere. It's about to rain. Speak to whoever, and find out who collects the dumpsters. We need the driver from this morning back here. And find out where the fuck Crime Scene are.'

  Radick raised his hand in acknowledgement, and made his way back to the car.

  Parrish hesitated again. Without a torch it was difficult to clearly see the ground around the box. He waited until Radick appeared at the mouth of the alley once more, and walked up to meet him.

  'Tarpaulin's on the way,' Radick said, and handed over a torch.

  Parrish went back the way he'd come, and scoured the ground around the box, but saw nothing of any significance. Stepping to the edge of the box, he looked closely at the uppermost flaps where a serial number was crudely stenciled in black ink, noted the standard heavy-duty metal staples along the seams; the box could have housed a refrigerator, perhaps a piece of furniture.

  Measuring five foot high, but only three and a half feet wide, either the girl was very small, or she had been folded awkwardly, perhaps even dismembered. 'Her face,' was all the uniform had told him. 'The janitor says he opened the box and saw her face.'

  Did the box contain all of her, or just her head, Parrish wondered, but when he saw her eyes he knew. When he reached into the box and felt through the darkness for her hand, he knew.

  She was not beaten, not bruised. There was no blood, no vicious gouges torn from her shoulders or her breasts or her arms. She had not been hog-tied, or gagged, or blinded. There was nothing about her that suggested the nature of her death aside from the indication of ligature around her neck - a rope, a cord, a length of fabric perhaps - and the hemorrhaging visible in her eyes.

  She looked at Frank Parrish as if she was relieved to see him. As if she was at peace. She was slight but perfectly proportioned, her hair dark and cut short at the back, and Parrish estimated she was five-two or three, perhaps a hundred to a hundred and ten pounds. Age about sixteen. Perhaps younger. He stepped back and took a deep breath. From all appearances she could not have been dead more than six or eight hours.

  More than anything, it was her hands that made an impact. The colored nails, so perfectly varnished, not a smudge, not a mark not a blemish. Just like Rebecca.

  Parrish was quiet inside. Not a sound, not a thought, just nothing at all.

  Until they knew her name she was no-one, except to Frank Parrish.

  Because he knew she was one of them. She had to be.

  THIRTY-TWO

  When you're young you have your dreams, all the things you could do, everything you could be. Parrish had accomplished none of those things, and now he was out of time. He felt the emptiness like a raw tooth socket. The memory of what he had wanted to become was as inherent and inescapable as his own blood: self-replenishing and permanent. His life was as predictable and unchanging as the progression of days. He thought Every day in every way I am not getting better. Whatever slim thread of optimism might have wound its way through his thoughts earlier - the feeling that he might make it through the day without a drink - had vanished.

  He stood at the end of the alleyway, drinking cheap, burned coffee from a paper cup and waiting for Crime Scene and the Deputy Coroner to complete their scene-work. He impressed upon the DC the need for results on blood and tox.

  'Rohypnol,' he told him. 'That's what I'm looking for. That or any other kind of benzo.'

  It was after five by the time the DC left with the body. A few minutes after that, the lead Crime Scene analyst emerged from the shadows of the alleyway and told Parrish what he did not want to hear.

  'No clothes, no evident signs of a struggle, no teeth-marks, no finger-marks on the neck, just the ligature, but we have a few fibers from her hair. There's no readable prints on the box. The surface is too rough. The number on the box is a classification code for the box itself, not the product it carried. I called it back to the office and someone checked up on the manufacturer . . . comes out of China, and they ship in excess of forty million of that size into the US annually. They are delivered all over the country, more than twenty-five percent of them along the east coast. They're used for furniture, air conditioning units, automotive parts, everything you can think of. We're taking it with us, but I don't know that lab time will give you anything more than we already know, which is basically nothing.'

  Parrish thanked the analyst, watched patiently as he and his crew packed up their circus and disappeared.

  He walked down the alley, Radick following, and then they stood in silence for a good while until Radick eventually spoke.

  'We got the dumpster collection firm,' he said. 'There's two guys that come down here - the driver, and the one who hooks the dumpsters to the back of the truck and makes sure they upend correctly. They didn't see the box down there, saw nothing out of the ordinary. We have names and addresses, a contact at the company, but I don't think they can give us anything more than we already have.'

  Parrish didn't reply. It was as he had expected.

  Little more than three hours had elapsed since the discovery of the girl, and now - looking back down the alleyway - no-one would have been any the wiser. It was as if she'd never existed, either in life or in death.

  All victims are not created equal.

  It was something his father had once said, back before OCCB, back before everything. It was only now - twenty-four years in the PD - that Parrish finally appreciated the depth of that statement.

  'Frank?'

  'I'm going to get a picture from the ME,' Parrish said. 'I'm going to print up a whole bunch of them and walk them through every department of Child Services and County Adoption if I have to. If she isn't on their system, then . . .' He shook his head, looked down at his shoes, said nothing more.

  He walked on past Radick and back towards the car.

  Forty minutes later Parrish and Radick had prints and pictures from the ME. Parrish sent Radick to run the prints for fingerprint identification, and he walked across Fulton to Family Welfare, District Five South. By the time he arrived it was closed, and though he spoke with the security people inside the lobby there was nothing they could do to help him. The place was locked down and empty until morning.

  It was en route back that he took a call from Radick.

  'We have a name,' he said, woodenly. 'Kelly Duncan. Sixteen years old. Father is dead, mother's alive, registered with Child Services two years ago.'

  'A definite?'

  'Yes, it's a definite. We had her prints on record from two assaults.'

  'Who assaulted her?'

  'Father. He was around until just over a year ago. He OD'd in July of 2007.'

  'And she was still living with the mother?'

  'Yeah, looks like it.'

  'Where?'

  'Seventh Street, down by the canal.'

  Parrish didn't reply right away: Seventh Street was no more than three or four blocks from where Caitlin lived. And the girl's body had been found back of Brooklyn Hospital, the same approximate distance from his own place on Clermont.

  'Frank?'

  'Yeah, I'm here. Pick me up outside the office. We'll go down there and see her now.'

  Janice Duncan was an ex-junkie. There was no question about it. The state of her teeth, her skin, the condition of her hair - the telltale signs of a heroin habit.

  Her reaction to the news of her daughter's death didn't surprise Frank Parrish. She seemed philosophically resigned to the inevitability of such a thing.

  'Shit,' she said matter-of-factly. She sat down on the sofa and lit a cigarette. Parrish sat on the only other chair in the room; Radick remained standing.

  'What happened?'

  'We believe she was murdered, Mrs Duncan. An autopsy is being performed right now—'

  'Murdered,' she said, but it was not a question.

&nb
sp; 'We believe so, yes,' Parrish replied. 'Can I ask when you last saw her?'

  'She came over Sunday,'Janice Duncan said. 'She was here most of the day. Said she was fine. Didn't seem to be a problem.'

  'She came over?' Parrish asked. 'She doesn't live here?'

  'Lives with her grandma most of the time,' Janice Duncan said. 'We've always had issues. She was Daddy's girl, no question, but he was an asshole to her anyway. I didn't know what to do with her. She was always dropping out of school, hanging around with people too old for her. Then her father died last year, and she went to stay with her grandma. She came over a coupla times a week, but sometimes I wouldn't see her for a fortnight. . .' Her voice trailed away. She was looking at Parrish but she wasn't seeing him.

  'So her grandmother would have been the last person to see her?'

  'I reckon so. You want her address?'

  'Please, yes.'

  'If you want to go see her now, I'll come with you. I can stay with her. She won't take it so good, you know?'

  Janice Duncan got up and went for her coat in the hall.

  Parrish turned and looked at Radick. Radick's expression said everything that needed to be said. How do people get like this? How does the welfare of their own children become so unimportant?

  The grandmother's place was three blocks away on West Ninth. Here the response was entirely different. Parrish and Radick were there for an hour, much of it spent listening to Janice Duncan as she tried to console her mother. All they gleaned from the grandmother was that Kelly had returned there from the mother's place on Sunday evening, and then left for school on Monday morning as usual. They took the name of the school. Parrish guessed that Kelly had been a no-show on Monday, but they wouldn't be able to check that until morning. Had Kelly come home from school on Monday? No she hadn't, but she had called to say that she was going to her mother's place for the night.

  Janice Duncan said that there had been no such arrangement. She didn't see Kelly on Monday.

  Where had Kelly called from? From her cellular phone, Grandma presumed.

  The detectives left a little after eight.

  'Phone records,' Parrish said when he got in the car. 'What teenage girl doesn't have a cell phone these days?'

  'I'll get onto it first thing,' Radick said.

  'Not just Kelly - Rebecca. And the others as well. Melissa, Nicole and Karen.'

  'You really think they're all the same perp?'

  'I have no idea, Jimmy, no idea at all.'

  Radick dropped Parrish on the corner of Clermont and wished him goodnight.

  'Want an early start,' Parrish said. 'Eight-thirty, okay?'

  'Eight-thirty,' Radick echoed, and pulled away.

  Parrish walked on down to the apartment, entered the lobby just as Grace Langham and her mother came from the other side of the street. Parrish held the door and waited for them.

  The little girl was in tears and being carried by her mother. Parrish recognized the symptoms - tired, cold, more than likely hungry - and Mom wouldn't get a break until the kid was fed and slept. As a parent, there were some things you never forgot.

  Parrish smiled as Mrs Langham entered the elevator. Again that awkwardness of expression, the slight embarrassment - not only from the proximity of someone she had no idea how to relate to, but that instinctive sense of needing to apologize that all parents experienced when their children were potentially troublesome to others.

  'What's this then?' Parrish asked. He directed his question at Grace, but got no response. But, with her head on her mother's shoulder, and Parrish right in her eye line, there was no way the child could ignore him.

  'Grade?' he asked, and received a momentary flash of acknowledgement.

  'So you are listening to me, eh? Well, I have a question for you.'

  Grace just stared at him, tears in her eyes, her breath hitching.

  'You ready?'

  Her eyes widened.

  'How old are you, Grade?'

  'S-Six,' she said. 'Six and a quarter.'

  Mrs Langham half-turned to look back at Parrish. The expression on her face was one of bemusement. She understood in that moment she may as well not have been there.

  'Six and a quarter? Well, let's see. That's what? That's two thousand, two thousand one hundred, two thousand two hundred . . . and eighty-something. Two thousand, two hundred and eighty days. Roughly. That's how old you are.'

  Grace nodded. She'd stopped crying.

  'Well, here's a game . . . before I get out of the elevator you have to think of your favorite day out of all of them.'

  'Favorite?'

  'Sure. The best, best, best day of them all.'

  'Disneyland!' she said suddenly.

  'Disneyland? No way! You've been to Disneyland?'

  'Yes! I went to Disneyland!'

  'And how good was that?'

  The elevator bell rang, it slowed and came to a halt.

  'The best! The best day ever!' Grace said, and she started to laugh.

  The elevator doors opened.

  'Next time you can tell me all about it,' Parrish said. 'Now you go get something to eat and get to bed, okay?'

  Grace was still laughing as she exited the elevator with her mother.

  Mrs Langham glanced back as she reached her door. Thank you, she mouthed, and the elevator doors closed.

  I saw Mickey and Minnie! Parrish heard Grade shouting as the elevator started up to the next floor.

  Back in his apartment, Parrish shrugged off his overcoat and jacket, went to the kitchen, and poured himself two fingers of Bushmills.

  Back in the sitting room, he called Eve Challoner; the line was busy.

  He thought of Caitlin. No matter the line that bisects a circle, the two halves will perfectly match. If he called her now she would ask him about the booze. She didn't understand it; hell, no-one really understood it. Like Mitch Hedberg said, Alcoholism Is the only disease you get yelled at for. He said that before he overdosed.

  Caitlin - the brightest of all his days, the darkest of all his nights. And a dead teenage girl no more than three or four blocks from where she lived.

  He picked up the phone and dialed Eve again. Answer service. He hung up and went back to the bottle in the kitchen.

  THIRTY-THREE

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

  'How are you this morning?'

  'I'm okay actually. Feeling okay.' 'How's the case?' 'We had another yesterday.' 'Another girl?' 'Yeah.' 'And . . . ?'

  'We're waiting for tox. If she was drugged then I think we're going in the direction that it's the same killer. This girl is physically the same type as the others, same paint-job on the fingernails. She felt like the same guy, you know? And if it's someone different then it's one fuck of a coincidence.' 'How old was she?' 'Sixteen.'

  'And you had to tell her parents?'

  'Mother. Dad's dead, OD'd a while back. He was a beater. Mom's an ex-junkie, if ever there was such a thing—' 'Meaning?'

  'Meaning that there is very rarely such a thing as an ex-junkie. If they're really ex then they're usually dead.'

  'I see . . . Right, well let's get back to you, Frank. Last time we spoke—'

  'We talked about how my father might have killed a couple of guys to keep them from testifying.'

  'Yes. And how have you been feeling about it since you told me?'

  'Just dandy. Couldn't be better.' 'Seriously.'

  'How do you think I feel?'

  'I can't tell you that, Frank. You have to tell me.'

  'Hell, truth is it doesn't matter how I feel. The past is the past. It's gone. No use hanging on to it.'

  'I'm not suggesting you hang on to it. All I'm saying is that in order to let go of it you have to understand it.'

  'What's there to understand? He was a crook, guilty as any man he ever arrested. The fact that he managed to maintain such a good reputation was a combination of his own brilliance and the corruptness of the system he was a part of. If the system had been clean
then he would never have been able to do it.'

  'I know you really believe he killed those men, Manri and McMahon, that he was really capable of such a thing. But what do you believe his motive was? Money?'

  'Yeah, money, but also to protect himself, to protect his superiors, to make sure he didn't get caught in the line of fire somewhere ... it really doesn't matter what reasons, he still killed them, and if he killed them then he was a murderer who got away with it.'

  'But he didn't. He was murdered himself.'

  'The best part of a decade and a half later. He got away with it for that long. And I can't imagine they waited that long to kill him because of Manri and McMahon. I'm sure there were other things going on. Fifteen years is a long time.'

  'Do you think he deserved to die?'

  'Probably, yes.'

  'Do you believe in the death penalty?'

  'As a deterrent no, as a punishment, yes.'

  'So some people deserve to die?'

  'Yes. Don't you believe that?'

  'This isn't about me, Frank, this is only about you.'

  'Sounds like a great foundation for a relationship.'

  'Don't go off the subject. I want to talk about that. I want to know who you think deserves to die.'

  'Well, for a start, we have this guy here - if it is one guy - the one that's drugging, fucking and strangling teenage girls. He'll do to begin with.'

  if you knew who it was would you kill him?' if I knew who it was I would arrest him, read him his rights, lock him up and let the DA prosecute him.'

  'Do you have faith in the system?'

  'Sometimes.'

  'How do you feel about the people who walk on technicalities?'

  'I have learned to be philosophical.'

  in what way?'

  'Guy I knew, did a couple of armed robberies. One time he killed a girl. She was twenty-three and pregnant. Had an eyewitness who saw him go into the bank before he put his ski-mask on. Saw him walk right on in there with a sawn-off. Once inside they had nothing but video footage of him with the mask, so the whole thing depended on the eyewitness statement. Well, the witness had a stroke about three weeks before trial and the DA had to drop the case. The perp went to the court to meet with his lawyer and the judge, and he got the news. So he leaves the court, he walks three blocks and he hails a cab. Then he steps off the sidewalk and he gets hit by a truck. The guy was mystery meat for a block and half.'