Saints Of New York

by R.J. Ellory

  Parrish did get an answer, was put through from there to the Communications Supervisor, who - though helpful - couldn't tell Parrish what he wanted to know.

  'I'm sorry,' she said. 'We don't track calls like that. We have a central switchboard. All calls coming in go to the same number. Dealing with the sheer number of people we deal with, it proved unworkable to have each desk with a separate extension. There had to be some kind of filter or these people would be swamped with unwanted calls all day every day. From their desks they dial for an outside line, and then they can call direct. Incoming calls go to the same central number, and then they are transferred through to whoever they're for, but we don't keep a record of them. I'm sorry I can't help you with this.'

  Parrish thanked her and hung up.

  'Never straightforward is it?' Radick said.

  Parrish told Radick about his meeting with Foley, that half the male employees would be in the following morning.

  'I'd go alone,' Parrish said, 'but Valderas will consider it unacceptable protocol—'

  'No question,' Radick replied. 'I'm coming with you. We need to speak to these people together.'

  'Appreciated,' Parrish said. He glanced at his watch. 'You ever eaten at that diner down on Livingston and Elm?'

  Radick shook his head.

  'Let me buy you lunch, okay?' Parrish got up.

  'You don't have to, Frank.'

  'I want to,' Parrish said. 'Humor me, okay?'

  FORTY-THREE

  George McKinley Wintergreen had pushed a cart for as long as anyone could recall. Even when he slept, that cart was tethered to his right ankle with a makeshift chain of bootlaces. Cut that cord and you could have stolen the cart, but it would have done you no good. The entire shifting spectrum of George's worldly possessions were in that cart, but they were worthless to anyone but him. Bottle caps - a whole sack of them - everything from Coca-Cola and 7-Up to Seagram's, Crown Royal, Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and even a small baggie of wood and cork stoppers from Labrot Graham's Woodford Reserve. Next came cotton reels, bobby pins, buttons, photographic film canisters, eye-droppers, batteries, discarded keys, foreign coins, empty matchbooks, ring-pulls, barrettes, teaspoons, and a thick wad of postcards, all of which had come from England to the many and varied relatives left behind by American tourists.

  Dear Ma. We saw Buckingham Palace. Lucy thinks she saw the Queen of Britain at the window.

  Jimmy. We're having a great time, though a can of Pepsi is nearly two bucks!

  Granddad. Hope you are well. Uncle David says we're going to see someplace called Madam Two Swords today. Sounds like a bordello!

  Other such sentiments.

  George Wintergreen was a jackdaw, a hoarder, though the rationale behind his collecting, what current or future purpose these things would ever serve, was unknown to anyone but himself. He guarded them ferociously, but was just as likely to decide that some item was no longer of value. During his fifteen years of vagrancy he had abandoned combs, lengths of string, padlocks, broken wristwatches, cigarette packets, computer discs, lipstick tubes, plastic forks and ballpoint pen refills.

  Wintergreen haunted the edges of South Brooklyn - Carroll Park, the Gowanus Canal - sometimes crossing beneath the shadow of the expressway into Red Hook. He slept in doorways, derelict buildings, abandoned storefronts; and every once in a while took advantage of the narrow floor space available in a deconsecrated church near the James J. Byrne Memorial Park. Here, amidst the flotsam and jetsam of Brooklyn, those that walked the streets unseen like ghosts of New York's past, he slept for a handful of hours away from the bitter cold. Come daylight, he would disappear again into whatever world existed through his eyes. He pushed his cart, he collected his necessaries, he spoke to no-one.

  One time George had been married. One time he'd understood the vagaries and vicissitudes of the international money market as well as any man, alive or dead, but then something happened. A chasm opened up. George fell headlong, and he kept on falling until he hit the dirt and - in preference to trying to claw his way out - he decided to stay there.

  But however deep that chasm might have been, George still possessed sufficient common sense and connection to reality to understand that the dead body of a teenage girl was something he couldn't just push his cart away from and forget.

  Early evening of Friday the 12th, perhaps a little before six, George made his way across the corner of Hamilton and Garner and headed beneath the expressway. He intended to skirt the Red Hook recreational area, make his way back along Columbia as far as Lorraine, and then turn right, follow Lorraine to Creamer and Smith, and then north again around the line of the canal towards Fourth. Had he completed his circuit as planned, he would have been no more than two or three blocks from Caitlin Parrish, perhaps the same distance from Kelly's home. But he didn't complete his circuit. In fact he got no further than the end of Bay Street, for it was here that he wrestled his cart between a dumpster and a rusted metal trash can. Snagged momentarily, George used all his strength to push the cart through the narrow gap. What he didn't realize was that his cart was caught on a length of heavy wire that had been used to secure the lid of the trash can. In shoving his cart through the gap he brought the can over, and the wire, corroded and brittle, just simply snapped. The can went over, the lid broke loose, and the remains of a much- decomposed human being spilled out into the alleyway.

  Unable to comprehend, unable to correlate this to any prior point of reference, it was some moments before George Wintergreen realized what he was seeing. Once two and two had become four, he backed up, left his cart right where it was, and hurried to the street. Fortunately, it took him no more than five or six minutes to flag down a black-and-white, whose occupants he directed, almost wordlessly, to the scene in the alleyway.

  The younger of the two patrol officers turned gray-green and walked back to the car to call it in; the older officer, Max Wilson, crouched low and shone his flashlight right in there. He saw the purse at the bottom, saw whatever it was covered with, saw the last vestiges of fluid and flesh and rotted human being that was once a person, and from the presence of the purse and the size of the trash can he figured that it must have been a girl, no more than a teenager. He couldn't be certain, and he assumed nothing. Along with Crime Scene the DC had been called, and between them they would determine what had been discovered

  The younger officer, Will Rathburn, headed back to deal with George Wintergreen. George sat on the sidewalk, maybe ten or fifteen feet from the overturned trash can, his cart beside him, his gaze unerringly fixed on the ground between his feet.

  George didn't smell so good, and Rathburn hoped like hell they wouldn't have to take him in the squad car back to the precinct. Though he also knew to assume nothing, it seemed obvious that the old guy had merely pushed the trash can over with his cart. How long it had been there, and who was inside - well, that would be a job for Crime Scene. Right now it was simply a matter of containing the scene, preventing any further contamination of evidence, closing up each end of the alleyway and waiting for further instructions.

  Crime Scene and the Deputy Coroner arrived simultaneously. They got the purse out of the bottom of the can and opened It up. Thankfully the purse was made of some artificial leather, more than likely a polyethylene-based fabric, waterproof at least, and amidst the remnants of gum wrappers, an undamaged cell phone, eye drops, and a single unwrapped condom, there was a wallet. Inside it was a student ID card, and that gave them a name: Melissa Schaeffer, d.o.b. 06/14/1989, her pretty face looking back at the DC like so many other lost daughters and mislaid girlfriends. The trash can had not been completely airtight, the extent of decomposition was such that there was little smell left, and when they tried to up-end the can the base broke away with corrosion. The thing had stood against all weather and wind for some considerable time, held merely by the strength of the metal and the fact that it had not been disturbed. Now it was simply a matter of determining whether the name on the ID card matched
the body in the can. Then it would be a question of who she was, where she had come from, when had she gone missing, and who might still be looking for her. Sometimes people just stopped looking. Sometimes it was simply that a detective somewhere wished for nothing more than to resolve a question and close a file. Other times it was the end of someone's endless search, and their very worst fears confirmed.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Friday evening Parrish and Radick parted company amicably enough. Lunch had been brief, relatively laconic on both sides, and the hours until the end of their shift had been spent going back through files, through photos, through dates and names and Missing Person reports.

  Parrish's conclusion, unavoidable in its simplicity, was that beyond Lester Young and the people at South Two they had no- one. If these enquiries came to nothing then they were back at square one.

  That evening, willpower mustered to stay away from Clay's, Parrish watched TV for a couple of hours. Then he dragged out a box of letters and pictures that he kept beneath his bed. Robert and Caitlin as kids. Clare - young and pretty and still free of the antagonistic bitterness that seemed to be her stock-in-trade these days. At the bottom were photos of himself as a child, photos of his mother, his father, of graduations from high school and the Police Academy. His whole life in a box no more than ten by twelve.

  He thought of going over to see Caitlin, of trying to explain himself. He imagined standing there outside her door, the feeling in his lower gut like an awkward teenager collecting his prom date. He hadn't felt this anxious since Caitlin's birth, before that Robert's, before even that the night he'd asked Clare to marry him. But that night he'd been drunk. Drunk also when Caitlin had been conceived. Hell, if his adult life was a road trip he'd done pretty much all of it DUI.

  His thoughts of loss and loneliness like weeds that had taken root simply through neglect, Parrish wondered where it had gone off the rails. You worked so hard at so many things, you made decisions based on what you believed to be right, and more oftenthan not it came out wrong. He understood that life was not meant to be easy, but how come it could be so hard?

  Shrugging off the temptation to let himself get morose and nostalgic, Parrish packed up the letters and pictures and slid the box beneath the bed. There was something about this case that had really crawled beneath his skin. The sense of innocence abused, the feeling that someone somewhere had taken advantage of the trust and dependence afforded them by these girls. That was what it looked like, and that was what it came down to. Someone had said they would do one thing, and then they had done another. Someone had assumed a position of responsibility and guardianship, and then violated that agreement. Hadn't he done the same thing with Clare, with Robert, with Caitlin? Yes, for sure, but he hadn't murdered anyone. He might have killed a marriage, he might have suffocated any chance of real reconciliation between himself and his daughter, but he hadn't ended any lives. He considered his discussions with Marie Griffin, the details about his father - wondered whether John Parrish had in fact been guilty of the murders of Joe Manri and Robert McMahon that night in the spring of '79. He believed he had. He had felt sure of it. And it wasn't until now that he had allowed himself sufficient space to consider how that made him feel. Guilty? Not for the killings, but for saying nothing? For being sure of something and saying nothing? No, not even that. So what was it? It had to be that same thing: violation of trust, the agreement to carry the burden of responsibility, and then to do something else entirely. His father the lawman, the keeper of the peace, the one who was supposed to protect and serve . . . well, he protected and served the very people he was meant to stop. What was that if not betrayal?.

  So where did that put him? Right in the middle of this mess, right there in plain view, and he could make a decision to see it through, regardless of consequence, or he could call it quits, pack up his stuff, and walk.

  The man he had always hoped to be would see it through, but what about the man he really was?

  At quarter past eight Parrish left his apartment and walked over to Clay's. He told himself he would have only one drink, but he was a liar, and he knew it well enough not to try and convince himself otherwise.

  FORTY-FIVE

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

  For no other reason than to satisfy his own curiosity, Parrish went by Marie Griffin's office on Saturday morning. It was locked, lights out, no-one home. Why this gave him a curious sense of satisfaction he did not know, but it served to assuage his guilt. He had suggested they take a break from one another, more for her benefit than his own, and she had done just that. He had made her feel awkward, challenged her position - personally and professionally - and yet he was not sorry. Whatever he was experiencing was real, very real indeed, and she was either up to dealing with it or she was not. He would see her Monday, and he hoped that by then he would have made some progress on the case. Perhaps with some forward motion on this thing he would be able to think about other things - what to do with Robert and Caitlin, how best to deal with Clare. Seemed to him that it was others' problems with him that caused the difficulties, not the problems he had with himself. But such things could be shelved for some other day. Today, Saturday the 13th, they would begin their interviews at South Two and see if there was a child-killer in Family Welfare.

  Radick appeared just before nine, and Parrish had already prepared the files on each girl to take with them.

  'How do you want this to go?' Radick asked him.

  'Keep it simple at first. Names, addresses, how long have they worked there, where did they work before. Then we ask did they know any of these girls, have anything to do with them directly. That kind of thing. Once we've got whatever we can get from these guys, then we run our own checks on them, all the standard stuff - who has yellow sheets, who doesn't, you know. Like I said before, there's a guy I know in the FBI who might just be willing to do a search on them for us, if he's still there, and if he's in a good mood. For me, it's a matter of getting in front of some of these characters and seeing if there's anything that shows up. The over-confident ones, the dismissive ones, the nervous ones. There's bound to be a couple that stand out. We know that both Karen and Kelly took calls from Family Welfare in the days before they were murdered, and Rebecca called into the office herself. What that gives us I don't know, but it's a hook, you know? It's a coincidence, and I don't like coincidences.'

  Radick agreed, couldn't see any better way to go, and they left for South Two just after nine-thirty.

  Marcus Lavelle had been good to his word. He had set aside an office, even provided a coffee machine, a plate of Danish.

  'We only eat donuts,' Parrish said, deadpan, and it was a moment before the strained and anxious expression on Lavelle's face eased.

  'Lighten up,' Parrish told him. 'We're not orthodontists.'

  Lavelle poured coffee, one for himself as well. He sat down with Parrish and Radick and asked them how they wanted to do this.

  'Initially, we're going to need maybe ten or fifteen minutes with each one. How many staff do you have in this morning?'

  'Twenty-six, twenty-seven if you include me. Guys, that is. We, have some of the girls but I know you don't want to speak to them.'

  'We may do,' Parrish said, 'but that'll be later. That'll depend somewhat on what comes up in our initial interviews.'

  Lavelle was silent for a moment, his fingers tying invisible knots, his eyes wide, his breathing audible.

  'What is it?' Radick asked.

  Lavelle shook his head.

  'If you have anything you feel we should know, Mr Lavelle . .

  'It's nothing. Well, I say it's nothing, but it has been bothering me and . . . well, I don't know if it means anything but it struck me as odd, and at the time I didn't pay a great deal of attention to it, but in light of what has happened . . .'

  He paused. He looked at Parrish, then at Radick, and back to Parrish.

  No-one spoke for a considerable time.

  'A while back, when we move
d offices, when everything changed, you know?' Lavelle inhaled audibly. His fingers tied more knots, untied them, tied them once more. 'Well, obviously when we moved we had to take everything with us, all the old files, the records, the computers. We did leave the furniture behind . . . you know, desks and stuff . . .'

  Lavelle smiled weakly, almost as if he was trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing, that there was no option but to say what he needed to say.

  'I was there during some of that work. We had contractors in. They broke up all the old furniture that was worthless, and the stuff that was still in reasonably good condition was shipped out to a warehouse somewhere. I think the city was going to sell it on, or perhaps use it some other place. Anyway, we had these lockers, and they were just regular lockers, the kind of thing you find in gyms and schools and whatever, with a little combination lock on the front, you know? Nothing much as far as security is concerned, but they served the purpose. People put their books and umbrellas and lunchboxes in there, stuff like that. Anyway, the contractors were breaking up these lockers and there was one locker with some magazines in there. Two or three of them, and they were just like your regular skin mags, you know? One of the contractors made a joke about it and he threw them into one of these big waste sacks they had, and I went over there, curious, you know? I went over there and had a look, and they weren't just regular magazines; at least they didn't seem that way to me. The pictures in them were of young girls . . . not like little children, but young girls. I don't know, maybe fifteen or sixteen or something, but too young to be taking their clothes off and having their pictures taken for magazines like that.'

  'And did you know whose locker they came out of?' Parrish asked.

  Lavelle nodded.

  'Their name?'

  'I'm not going to ... I mean, you're not going to say that I said anything about this, are you?'