by R.J. Ellory
Parrish woke with a start. His mouth tasted like stale cheese and copper filings. He squinted at his watch. Twenty past three. McKee's house was still in darkness. How long had he been asleep? Had he really slept, or had he just dozed for a moment? He sat up straight, reached for the flask and filled the cup. Still surprisingly hot, the coffee took the bad taste from his mouth and warmed him. The interior of the car was bitterly cold. Parrish scooted over into the front passenger seat. He turned the key in the ignition, switched the heater on, inched open the window to allow a through-draft, and settled back. Maybe he wasn't so good at this. Maybe he had lost the edge.
He felt a sudden sharp twinge in his lower gut. The sensation hadn't bothered him for a few days and he'd forgotten about it. It eased momentarily, and then came back with a vengeance. Like teeth and claws in the base of his stomach, and just as he was about to open the door and stand up it passed again. He massaged his abdomen. He took a couple of deep breaths. He poured out some more coffee and drank it slowly.
By the time daylight started to edge its way over the city, Parrish felt more alert. He had not slept again, and he felt sure that McKee had not left the house while he was asleep earlier. Perhaps he would wake soon. Perhaps he would go out for the day. Was he working today? Or was it this weekend that he had the kids? When the kids came over did they stay home, or did he take them out - movies, the zoo, crazy golf, whatever doghouse-dads did with part-time kids to make themselves feel as though they were being paternal and positive?
Parrish found it difficult to believe, but the previous Saturday - September 13th - had been the first time he'd met Richard McKee. He remembered the conversation he'd had with Carole Paretski - the fact that this was the weekend when Richard had the kids for both days. He also remembered what she had asked him, whether he wanted her to let Richard take the children. Yes, he had told her. Leave everything as it is. Don't alert him to anything out of the ordinary.
Did Carole usually bring them over, he wondered, or did McKee go and collect them? If he went out to get them, then they could go for a day out from Carole's house and Parrish would be none the wiser. However, if Carole delivered them and then McKee took them out it was unlikely he would be back for several hours. Hell, there was no certainty of that either. He could drive them down the road for pizza and come right home again. The whole thing was a mess of uncertainty, and the uncertainty of McKee's schedule was only important if he intended to break the law.
Parrish thought to call Carole Paretski, ask her what the arrangements were for the pick-up. But he couldn't do that. She might mention such a conversation to Radick if they had to see her again. Parrish now seriously began to question what he was doing. Perhaps he should abandon it, he thought. Perhaps he should just start the engine, pull out, drive home, get a proper meal, a good sleep, see how he felt about the situation later . . .
But he couldn't. This wasn't going away, and if he didn't do something about it then he would never know. If he didn't break this thing wide open one way or the other then he would be haunted by it for the rest of his career. People did get obsessed by the unsolved cases. He'd heard of it, it was not uncommon. A thousand murders, all but two or three of them solved, yet hardened, weather-worn veteran homicide detectives would spend the rest of their lives wondering and worrying about the ones that they missed. Especially if kids were involved. Kids got under your skin and lived with you for the rest of however long. The cases that woke you up at night were the ones that you had to finish, come what may.
Parrish resolved to stay. It was a few minutes before five a.m. It was unrealistic that McKee would be out to get the kids before seven earliest. He set the alarm for seven on his cell phone and curled up on the back seat. He was asleep within minutes, dreaming, and what he dreamed seemed only a reflection of his waking thoughts in some grotesque funhouse mirror.
The girls were there - all of them and more - and he knew that if he did not give them closure they would indeed follow him for the rest of his life.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
At first Parrish was disoriented, uncertain where the sound was coming from, what it meant.
He snatched his phone from the edge of the seat and held it close to his face. The alarm. He switched it off, but it took a good fifteen or twenty seconds for him to remember where he was and what he was doing. He sat bolt upright. McKee's house was right there to his left. There was now too much daylight to determine whether any internal lights were on, but the upstairs drapes were still closed. The house looked still and silent and unchanged.
Parrish took several deep breaths. He felt dizzy and nauseous. He wanted a drink, knew that it would have been the worst idea of all, and resorted to the tepid dregs of his coffee. He was hungry too, but there was no food left.
Something shifted at the edge of his field of vision.
The left half of the drape had moved - just a few inches, but it had moved. McKee was still in there, and now he was awake. Parrish suddenly felt a resurgence of purpose. He looked at his watch. Six minutes past seven. Would he leave to collect Sarah and Alex . . . Sarah and Alex what? McKee or Paretski? Had Carole Paretski initiated the final act of ignominy and humiliation against her ex-husband by changing the kids' names to hers? And if he was going to collect them, when would he leave? Parrish simply had to wait. That was all he could do.
An hour passed. He pissed in the plastic bottle, managed to spatter his hands and the knees of his pants. He felt like a bum. He could only begin to imagine what the inside of the car smelled like. Lucky it wasn't his. Lucky if he returned it with no-one the wiser. In truth, he knew he was fucked. He knew that whichever way this came out he would be up before Valderas, Haversaw, Internal Affairs perhaps. There would be an inquiry - the polite and politically correct name for a ball-buster of an investigation. Would he walk away unscathed? Not a prayer. Would he lose his job once and for all? Most likely. And in considering such a scenario, the only thing that galled him was the possibility that he would be officially castrated before he had a chance to nail McKee. This was the case that he needed. This was the one that would save his self-respect.
If he could break this thing then perhaps he would no longer carry the burden of guilt about his father, the fact that he said nothing, the fact that he could have done something about what was happening and didn't. And now this bullshit from Briley . . . He didn't understand that. He couldn't grasp why a priest would want to defend his father. But then, if what Briley had said was true . . .
Parrish shook his head. He could not allow himself the luxury of such a thought. He needed to hold onto his own certainty. John Parrish had been a fuck-up. People were dead because of John Parrish. People were alive because of Frank.
Was that what it was all about?
He turned the rear-view and looked at himself. Unshaven, tousle-haired, exhausted. He looked like crap and felt no better.
Eight-thirty a car pulled up outside McKee's house. Parrish's heart quickened. Yes! he thought as he saw Carole Paretski exit the vehicle. She stood on the sidewalk as Alex and Sarah climbed out of the car and walked to the stoop. Carole Paretski, I fucking love you!
He looked at Sarah. How old did Carole say she was? Fourteen, fifteen? Not much younger than the girls that had been killed. And Carole had been right in her physical description - Sarah was tall and slim, blonde-haired, an attractive girl. Parrish thought of the hole in the corner of her bedroom, of her father lying in the dust up there, wiring that thing up, recording his own kid, her friends . . .
Parrish waited just as they did. Sarah knocked on the door, stepped back, glanced at her mother, seemed for a moment to glance back at Parrish but her gaze didn't linger or hesitate.
She raised her hand to knock again, and this time the door opened. Carole Paretski stood with her arms folded for a moment, and then she hugged and kissed each of the kids and waited as they went inside. She shared a few stone-faced words with her ex- husband. He nodded, turned to close the door, but she said somet
hing that caused him to turn back and frown. A moment of recognition perhaps, a businesslike smile from McKee, and he stepped back inside the house and left the door open. Moments later he returned with a sheet of paper. She searched her purse, handed him a pen, he signed the paper at the bottom, folded it and gave it to her. What was it? Permission for the kids to do some activity at school? An approval for music lessons, a medical appointment, an orthodontist's bill? It didn't matter. Business was done. Carole turned back to her car, Richard went inside, closed the door, and Parrish sat there for a minute with his heart doing double-time. Carole Paretski took one more look at the house, and then she got in the car and pulled away. Parrish wished that Michael Vale was with him. His partner would have understood. His partner would have done this with him. Had his partner been alive he wouldn't be playing uncle to Jimmy Radick.
The house was still and silent again. Parrish took a deep breath and set himself to waiting once more.
The wait was not long. Forty minutes at most. McKee left the house alone, walked down towards the end of the street, and minutes later he pulled up outside in the SUV. He went to the front door, opened it, called the kids, and then locked the front door once they were in the car.
They drove away, all three of them. They just drove away and left Frank Parrish sitting across from the empty house.
Parrish didn't hesitate for long, but it seemed a small eternity. He knew now that things had reached the point of no return. If he moved he was going inside the house; if he got inside the house then he would not be coming out unless he had something certain and probative. He needed the mementos that Ron had spoken of with such certainty. He did not dare consider that he was wrong. Such a possibility was far too uncomfortable to contemplate. He felt as if the entirety of his career now came down to this decision. He was here because of his own intuition, his own self-belief - professional and personal. He was here because he felt sure that Richard McKee, he of Family Welfare, South Two, was a child-abductor, a rapist, a sex killer. These were peoples' children, peoples' daughters who had, at one time, been loved and cared for, and then the harshest of realities had intervened . . .
Parrish reached for the door lever and got out of the car. He took his holdall, his keys, his flashlight, his .32.
He hurried across the street, and with a skill and efficiency that belied his sense of panic, he had the front door unlocked and was inside the hall within thirty seconds.
He stood still for some time, waiting for his heart to resume something approximating a regular pace. It didn't completely manage that, but it got close enough for him to move.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
'What's her name?'
'I think her name is Eve, maybe Evelyn, I'm not sure.'
Radick frowned. 'I tell you something, he's never given me any indication that he has something going on with someone,' he said.
Caitlin Parrish reached up and touched her forefinger to Jimmy Radick's lips. 'That's because you don't have the female's intuition. We see things that men don't see.'
Radick smiled. 'Is that so?' He shifted sideways a fraction.
Caitlin put her right leg over his thigh and her hand on his chest.
'It is so. I can tell. A couple of times I've just picked something up.'
'And who is she?'
'I have no idea.'
'So how do you know her name?'
'Well, I don't. Not as such. There was a Post-It next to the phone at his place one time. This was like a year ago maybe. It just said Eve and then a date, that was all.'
'And your extraordinary powers of female intuition led you to believe that this was the girl your father was seeing?'
'No, it was how he reacted when I asked him who Eve was. He looked directly at me and said it was just a work thing, but there was this flicker in his expression, like he didn't want me to ask.'
'You think he'd be embarrassed if he thought you knew he was going out with someone?'
'No, not embarrassed. Dad doesn't get embarrassed. But he's old-fashioned, and he still thinks of me as his little girl. You saw how he was when you guys came over the first time, all that worrying about what I'm doing, what my friends are like, when
I'm going out, how long I'm staying out for, where I'm going to work. I mean, to be completely honest, it gets a bit claustrophobic sometimes. He does get a bit obsessive.'
'I know about that.'
'What?'
'Well, this case we're on. I mean, I really don't see it, but he has a guy for these killings. He has really zeroed in on this guy, and I can see why Frank might consider him a suspect, but I really don't see how he can be so sure. It is a bit obsessive, like you say.'
'That's just his nature. Mom used to say that sometimes he was so certain, even when he was wrong, and there was no way you could convince him otherwise. Some people are just like that, and Frank Parrish is one of them.'
Radick looked thoughtful, was quiet a moment, then asked, 'What's the deal with his drinking?'
'He's always been that way. I don't think he's gonna kill himself from it, but it's certainly an issue for him. I always put it down to the stress of his job, but recently I've started to have other ideas.'
'Like what?'
'Well, I know he's my dad an' everything, but we've done this whole thing in work, like basic psychology stuff, and one of the classes we took was about drug and alcohol dependency. It talked about how people can start drinking out of some imagined inadequacy, you know? I thought about Dad, and then I thought about his dad, my grandfather—'
'John Parrish.'
'You know about John Parrish?'
'The guy's a fucking legend. OCCB, Brooklyn Organized Crime Task Force, more commendations than any other officer in the precinct's history.' Radick smiled.
'Yeah, and he and my grandma had a marriage that lasted forever. He had one son, and that son followed in his footsteps, right into the police department. As far as cops are concerned, the best validation of your parenting skills is if your son goes into the department alongside you, and that's what Frank did.'
'So you think he feels inadequate because he's always having to live up to the John Parrish reputation?'
Caitlin turned her mouth down at the corners. 'I don't know, but it sounds plausible. I . . . well ... it hasn't exactly been straightforward with his career, has it? And his marriage was a fuck-up, and his kids are doing whatever they're doing. I don't know when he last saw Robert, but Robert is about as far from what Granddad would have approved of as you could get. John Parrish was your regular all-American tough guy, a real John Wayne type that thought you were a fag if you didn't drink a quart of sourmash and go out picking fights with someone three times your size.'
'I know guys like that. A dying breed, but they still make 'em every once in a while.'
'Well, my brother is like your artistic type. He's studying engineering, but I think he'll wind up a graphic designer or an interior decorator or something. I mean, he's not a fag or anything - not that I would have anything on it if he was - but he doesn't go around biting trees and wrestling pickup trucks.'
Radick shifted again. He moved his leg upwards until he felt the warmth between Caitlin's thighs. He reached up his hand and stroked away a lock of hair from the side of her face.
'It's hard for me to consider that your father feels inadequate,' he said.
'Why?'
'Because he's so sure of everything he does. This job is not what I thought it would be . . . not exactly . . .'
'How d'you mean?'
'It's slower. It's more methodical. There's a hell of a lot of waiting and looking and more waiting after that. I figured it might be a little more fast-paced.'
'You wanna do Starsky and Hutch shit, right?'
Radick smiled. 'It's a job of patience and persistence, and being able not to get frustrated when you don't get what you want.'
'Dad's spoken to me about it,' Caitlin replied. 'He told me one time that he worked on a case for fourteen month
s. He got a compelling witness, someone who would stand up in court. He got wiretaps and search warrants and hard evidence on a multiple homicide case that would put the guy away for like two-fifty or something, and then the guy had a stroke and died thirty-six hours before they were scheduled to bust him. He said that a lot of them went like that - not that the perp always dies, but that there's some glitch or some legal technicality that makes the whole thing fall over.'
'You said perp.'
'Yeah, a perp. You know what a perp is, right?'
Radick laughed. 'A cop's daughter. Here I am, lying in a bed with a cop's daughter, and we're talking about busting perps.'
Caitlin smiled. She wriggled out from under Jimmy and sat on the edge of the bed. 'You want some coffee?' she asked.
'Sure,' he said.
She hesitated for a second, and then she looked over her shoulder at Radick.
'You think he's going to be okay?' she asked.
'Okay? How d'you mean?'
'Like, he's not going to do anything stupid on this case is he? This guy he's obsessing about for the killings?'
Radick shook his head. 'Frank? No, I don't think so. He knows how close he's come to getting fired from the department. I don't see him doing anything to risk that.'
Caitlin nodded and stood up. 'You're right,' she said. 'He wouldn't jeopardize that, would he? He doesn't have Mom, he sort of doesn't have me and Robert anymore, but hell, even when he had us we always came second.' She seemed pensive for a moment, and then she smiled. 'He's a cop, nothing more than that. Not a bad thing, but just the way he is. Without his job I don't think there'd be any reason for him to get up in the morning.'
Radick watched her as she walked from the bedroom. She looked great. Best-looking girl he'd ever dated. This one was a keeper, no doubt about it. One in a million.
