by R.J. Ellory
'Frank—'
'We are the brightest lights, Marie. We believe that here. We have to believe it. But the problem right there is that we also cast the darkest shadows. That's what we have to carry, and we carry it every day. People live and die by what we do. Always have, always will. It's a burden sure, but we carry it and we try and smile the best we can, and right now I really don't give a fuck what my father did or didn't do, and how that might have damaged me. It doesn't matter, and I'll grant you that, okay? I think you have managed to take my attention away from the past and direct it more towards the future. Well, perhaps not the future. We're not very good at future. Maybe you've helped direct it towards the present, and the present is right there, right there in front of me on DVDs and in magazines, in the sickening image of a teenage girl left with a broken neck in a cardboard box behind a dumpster. Someone did that. Someone is going to go on doing that. I think I know who that person is, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure he never does it again.'
'And what happens if you collapse, Frank? What happens if the pressure and responsibility costs you your relationship with your kids, and your health and sanity as well?'
'That's the drill, Doctor. That's what we do. I think it's called an occupational hazard.'
'You are the occupational hazard, Frank. You just can't see it.'
'Too busy looking elsewhere.'
'Well, I'm going to recommend—'
'Nothing, Marie. You're going to recommend nothing at all. I'll come back tomorrow, and maybe I'll be in a different mood. But if you do or say anything that causes me to be taken off this case . . . well, I don't know what I'll do. If you really are concerned for my mental welfare then you won't do anything to jeopardize my work on this case. I am only so far away from the truth . . .'
'I wasn't going to say that, Frank. Who the hell do you think I am? All I was going to say was that once this case was over I was going to recommend that you take some paid medical leave. I think you should get out of the city, go upstate maybe. Perhaps Robert and Caitlin could go with you. Do something outside of what you've been doing for the last God-knows how long.'
'Well okay, we'll talk about that when this thing is done.'
'Deal?'
'Deal. Now I have to go.'
'I understand, but do something for me, please?'
'And what would that be?'
'Take a moment every once in a while to remember that there is more to you than a homicide detective. Like what you were talking about, what you felt towards that woman.'
'And what good would that do?'
'You might be surprised. Like you said, sometimes we cannot escape the power of small things.'
SIXTY-THREE
Parrish asked Radick to go over to Erickson at Archives and help look for any more pictures of the dead girls. It was a diversion and Radick knew it, but he did not question it.
'You doing something useful?' he asked Parrish.
'Perhaps.'
'Something you have to do alone?'
'Something it's better that I do alone.'
'You think I wouldn't be able to handle it?'
'Jimmy, please ... I just bawled out the doctor. I'm not in the mood for square-dancing. Go help Erickson. I'll call you. Whatever I might be doing is no more or less important than finding more evidence about what happened to the girls. Let's just leave it at that.'
'How long do you need?'
'Couple of hours.' Parrish looked at his watch. 'Meet me back here at noon, give or take.'
Radick left without further questions. Parrish was gone ten minutes after - heading right back to Sackett Street and the garage lock-ups where McKee stored his SUV.
The street was empty. Windows looked back at him vacantly. He walked purposefully. Worst thing he could do was appear to be a stranger. In his pockets he carried two screwdrivers, a box- cutter, a torch, a key-ring with a collection of metal strips attached to it, some of them straight, some of them angled, others hooked or turned at the end. He also had a bunch of generic car keys. They were all routine tools for any car thief. Down back of the alley Parrish waited for a few seconds to ensure that no-one was arriving, leaving, or currently using their garage. It was quiet, so quiet that even his own footsteps on the gravel, even his own hurried heartbeat, seemed inordinately loud. Three minutes is a hell of a long time to wait when you are simply waiting. Half a dozen times Parrish knew he should walk away. Walk away right now. Just go, don't look back, don't even think about doing what he was planning to do. But he simply had to remember how Rebecca had looked when he'd found her on the bed in her junkie brother's apartment. Sixteen years old. Red fingernails. Petechial hemorrhaging back of the ears, visible in the whites of her eyes.
Parrish pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and then walked quickly to the garage. Within moments he was inside, had drawn the door back down and closed it. God, he hadn't even been smart enough to call and ensure that McKee was at work. It was Wednesday. Less of a chance that McKee would take a day off mid-week? Days off were usually Mondays and Fridays, trying to extend the weekend as long as possible. That counted for shit in the face of what he was doing. McKee could take a day off whenever he wanted.
Parrish stood in the dim silence of the lock-up. He breathed deeply. He tried his best to quell his heart, his pulse, but it was no good. He was out-of-shape, scared, already so far in over his head that there would be no way out of this if he was caught. Harassment, BE, invasion of privacy, violation of all the protocols regarding search and seizure and probable cause. Whichever way it went, if he was caught he was fucked.
In back of the garage, there between the front bumper and the wall were the usual cans of paints, toolboxes, painting tarps, a folding bicycle which looked like it hadn't been unfolded for years. There was a spare tire for the SUV, a box of light bulbs, a bag of wire coat hangers, other such things that should have been thrown out but never were. Aside from that it was just the car.
Parrish cupped his hands against the glass and looked through the front nearside window. He found the alarm light in the dash. It was off. Sure, he could disable an alarm, but it took thirty, forty seconds, and the newer the alarm the longer that stretched. The likelihood that anyone would hear it out here . . . well, better not to have to contend with that possibility.
From the bunch of keys Parrish selected the three or four that he felt might best fit. Second key he was in. The door opened soundlessly. Once again he paused for consideration of his actions. Now it wasn't just BE. Now it was far more serious. If he went through the guy's car - irrespective of whether or not anything was found - he was committing a serious offence. If he did find something there would be nothing he could do about it. It would be inadmissible in any investigation, any police precinct, any court of law. And he would be prosecuted to the full extent of the system. That much he would have earned. He knew that whatever he might find he would be unable to use it, but that wasn't why he was there. He was there simply to try and find something to confirm his suspicions. He wanted McKee to be the guy. He needed him to be the guy . . .
A sound. Was that a sound? Something outside?
Parrish's heart stopped. He heard himself swallow. He glanced down at the thin strip of light between the ground and the lower edge of the garage door. From outside would it look like the door had been left unlocked? Would whoever was out there notice it? Security? Did they have a security patrol during the day, some guy who got fifty dollars a week to just drive by and check that the doors were all secure?
Parrish tried to remember if the door had made a sound when he'd opened it. Had it squeaked? Would it make a sound if he tried to close it? He left it. He backed up and crouched down behind the front bumper. He watched the strip of light along the ground. He waited for the shadows of someone's feet to appear. He tried to breathe silently. He tried to vacate his mind completely. What would he say? He could just barge past the guy and run like a motherfucker, hope he wasn't caught. He could flash his
badge, take the guy completely by surprise, tell him that this was part of an undercover operation and swear him to secrecy. Security guards - hell, they all were wannabe cops. That would work. Sure it would . . .
Parrish silenced the internal voice. He wouldn't be caught. The guy wasn't security. He was no-one. He was walking down here because he was lost. He would see it was a dead-end, turn around, disappear. That's what would happen.
Parrish waited.
There seemed to be no sound at all, and then suddenly he could hear footsteps again. The sound of someone walking on gravel. Where was the gravel? Was it just at the entrance to the complex, or was it all the way down? He couldn't remember. He closed his eyes. He clenched his fists. He thought about how much he would have to drink to get over this feeling.
And then there was nothing.
He didn't even hear the footsteps recede into silence. They were there, and then they were gone. It was not so much that he heard silence, but that he felt the absence of anyone out there.
Parrish came out from behind the bumper. He stood up and flexed his knees. He realized how much he was sweating and took off his jacket. He walked to the garage door and stood there for at least two minutes. He could hear nothing but the odd car passing in the street beyond.
Parrish backed up, got into the car, and started looking through the glove compartment, the well between the seats, beneath the seats themselves, under the rug in the foot-well. He climbed into the back, pushed the seats forward, looked behind them and underneath them, searched through the bundle of maps in the rear door wells. Once he was done, he got out the car to check the trunk.
It was here that he found the files. A metal file box, to be exact. Big enough for legal, maybe two inches deep. It was locked. He went slowly, carefully, insuring that he left no scratches around the lock or on the smooth metal surface of the box. It opened within a minute, and he stood looking at the files for quite some time before he reached for them.
Seven files, all of them Family Welfare-stamped, a couple of them from CAA, the others from Child Services. Inside each one were current notes, all of them handwritten, all of them initialed RMcK. Four boys, three girls - the youngest nine, the oldest seventeen. Were these McKee's active cases? Were these visits he would be making? Did all Welfare staff have a secure box in their car to carry active case files for when they made visits? Parrish had no idea. Such a thing seemed entirely plausible, and from the notes it seemed that each of them were current cases . . .
And then Parrish looked again. Two of the boys were black, as was one of the girls. The second girl was twelve, brunette, perhaps Mexican, Puerto Rican. The last girl, sixteen years old a month or so before, was blonde. She was a pretty girl, and from the brief scan that Parrish made of the file he learned that she had been adopted by a family in South Brooklyn more than nine months earlier. The most recent comment in the file came not from McKee, but someone else. Someone with the initials HK. HK? Was there someone they had interviewed with the initials HK?
Parrish put down the files. He had his notebook with him. Did he still have the names that Lavelle had given him? He went through his pockets, found the list, unfolded it and straightened it out on the surface of the box. HK . . . HK . . . Harold Kinnear. Yes, he remembered him now. The older guy. Had been in the department for thirty years. What had he said? Something about the more civilized and sophisticated we became the less able we were too look after our kids.
This was not McKee's case. Jesus Christ, this was not McKee's case.
Parrish turned the list over. He wrote down the girl's name - Amanda Leycross, her date of birth - 12 August 1992, and the name and address of the couple that had adopted her back in January. Martin and Bethany Cooper, Henry Street, South Brooklyn. Parrish knew Henry Street, no more than three blocks from Caitlin, maybe half a dozen blocks from McKee himself. Take Williamsburg and Karen out of the equation, put all the locations on a map - Family Welfare Two, the Kelly Duncan crime scene back of Brooklyn Hospital, Sackett Street, the Coopers' place in South, Danny Lange's apartment on Hicks - and they tracked a circle, a circle that went all the way around this part of the city, as far north as Brooklyn Bridge, as far west and south as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. McKee had boxed himself in. Was this the commuter that the FBI profilers spoke of, always traveling out to the crime scene, dumping bodies far enough away not to attract attention? But when you added them all up, when you put them all together . . . then you saw a different picture entirely?
And Amanda Leycross? Was she next on the roster? Or was she dead already? Or was this just another file of another case that McKee was helping out on, reviewing, supervising? Had Parrish missed the game completely? He could not afford to think that. Not yet. Not until he knew who Amanda Leycross was and why McKee had her file.
Parrish had to get out, and quickly. He closed up the files, returned them to the box, relocking it carefully. He set it back precisely where he'd found it, grabbed his jacket then closed and locked the car and walked to the door.
He counted to five, opened it swiftly, banged it shut behind him, locked it and walked towards the alleyway. He was out on the street within seconds, walking back the way he'd come towards Union Street. His heart didn't stop pounding until he was on the subway. He looked again at the piece of paper upon which he'd written the girl's name. Amanda Leycross. Sixteen years old. Blonde, innocent, pretty as hell. Would she be number seven?
SIXTY-FOUR
'How was Archives?'
'Un-fucking-real, Frank. An hour, that's all I could handle. I don't know how those guys can spend their working days looking at that stuff.'
Parrish smiled. 'They get hardened to it.'
'That supposed to be a wisecrack?' Radick didn't wait for an answer. 'And where did you go?'
'To check on something.'
'Where?'
'It's better we close this line of questioning right now, Jimmy,' Parrish replied.
'Frank . . . you can't put yourself at risk, not in your current situation—'
'Jimmy, enough already.'
'One fuck-up, Frank, and—'
'Jimmy, I said enough. Okay?'
Radick sighed and shook his head. 'You ever take any of this shit seriously? Does it ever cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, they might get a skinful of your attitude and kick you out?'
'Kick me out? I'm a fucking institution, Jimmy. They kick me out and the whole place will fall apart.'
'You really believe that?'
'No, of course I don't believe it. You think my ego's that big?'
'Sometimes I wonder.'
'Sit down, Jimmy.'
'I'm gonna get a lecture?'
'Just sit the fuck down, Jimmy, okay? Just sit down and listen to me for a moment.'
Radick sat down. His expression was one of patient resignation.
'Now listen to me,' Parrish started, 'and listen to me carefully. I have a name. Where I got this name from doesn't matter. I don't want you to ask about how I came by this information, but it relates to a girl. She's sixteen, she was adopted about nine months ago, and she went to a family in South Brooklyn. This is someone I want to follow up on. Whether she's someone or not . . . whether she's got a place in this thing I don't know, but I want to follow up on her—'
'Whether or not she's got a place in this thing? Are you serious? You have the name of some girl and you think she might be a potential victim. Is that what you're saying?' Parrish hesitated. 'Frank? Tell me what the—' Parrish nodded.
'And where the fuck - may I ask - did that lead come from?' 'No you may not ask.'
'You gotta be kidding, Frank. You can't just come to me with a piece of information like that and say, "This is what we're going to do, but I'm not going to tell you why we're doing it". You can't run a homicide investigation like that.'
'So what do you suggest, Jimmy? I have a feeling about this, I really do. I have this idea that she might be in the line-up for this guy, and I cannot shake it. You think we sho
uld just sit on our hands and wait for this motherfucker to kill someone else? ' 'This motherfucker? Presumably that means McKee, right?' 'Sure.'
'Frank, we have nothing, and I mean nothing probative that suggests McKee is the guy. This is one hundred percent circumstantial.' Radick stood up and walked to the window. 'Christ, Frank,' he said exasperatedly, 'you have any idea how much of a nowhere this case is right now?'
'I'm not waiting any longer, Jimmy. This is bullshit. You know as well as me that this is the guy—' 'Frank, we don't know anything, not for sure—' 'Christ, Jimmy, get some balls on this thing man! We know it's someone at South Two. That's a connection you just cannot ignore. We know the guy likes teenage porn and all that shit. He has an SUV. He has the freedom to move. He's not in a house with a wife and kids. There's no-one there to keep an eye on what he's doing day and night. He's a free agent. He's a fucking commuter, that's what he is, just like the Feds say in the profiling material. He's out there collecting up teenage girls and selling them on, or making fucking snuff movies himself. That's what he's doing, and I fucking know it.'
'Okay, so he's the guy. Say he is our guy. What do we do now? We follow him every which way? You think we're gonna get a judge to sign a surveillance authorization, a wiretap . . . you really think we've got enough to sway a judge on this?'
'No we haven't, and that's why we're not going to do this on official lines.'
'You what?'
'We are gonna do it. You and me. We're gonna do it by ourselves. This is what it takes sometimes, Jimmy. This is the sort of thing you have to do sometimes to make one of these cases open up—'
