“He can’t tell you anything while you’re punching out his lights, Mongo,” my brother said dryly, sounding slightly bemused. “Once you’d abandoned your perfectly rational and perfectly useless approach to these jokers, you should have let me take care of business. You just get too emotional.”
“Let me go, Garth!”
“Calm down.”
“I am calm!”
“Get calmer.”
I stopped struggling, then started with surprise when the man I had been beating on, his face smeared with blood, abruptly sat up and started to shout—at least at first I thought he was shouting, but then realized that he had gone into a kind of trance and, like Craig Valley, was “speaking in tongues.” His eyes were wide and out of focus, his head thrown back as he howled at the sky.
Then the second twin, apparently caught up in his brother’s ecstasy, started. The man in the blue parka grasped his brother’s hand as he screamed, swayed, shouted, and stamped his feet. A chill that had nothing to do with the freezing cold went through me.
Then, still holding hands and screaming, moving in unison as if through some secret means of communication, the two men abruptly leaped to their feet and rushed between Garth and me.
“Hey, what the hell?!” I shouted, grabbing for the man in the tan parka as he hit me in the chest with his elbow and rushed past.
Garth lunged and grabbed for the other twin, and ended up holding an empty blue parka.
Stunned and horrified, Garth and I turned as one, cried out as the twins, still holding hands and shrieking their language which no one could understand, sprinted the short distance across the rooftop garden, jumped up on the parapet, and without hesitation hurled themselves out into the snow-swept darkness that echoed with the bells and music of Christmas Eve.
8.
“You two are in a lot of trouble,” Detective Lieutenant Malachy McCloskey said as he finally—ten minutes after we had been ushered into his office—looked up from the paperwork on his desk. The man with the acne-scarred face looked as if his chronic sciatica was acting up; he sat at a twisted angle, as if favoring his left buttock. He was unshaven, and his gray hair was rumpled. He’d obviously been rousted out of bed two or three hours before, and he was still missing his bed. Two or three hours was the length of time we’d had to wait after first coming into the precinct station; it confirmed to us that McCloskey had been given the standing assignment of dealing with all things now wrought by the Fredericksons. Levers had been pushed, strings pulled, and Malachy McCloskey, better than most people, would know how easily a man could get ground up in that kind of political machinery.
If Garth felt any discomfort at now being more or less at the mercy of a man who probably hated him, he didn’t show it—just as he hadn’t displayed any embarrassment or discomfort as we’d sat on the wooden benches outside and he’d had to endure the furtive, curious glances of his former colleagues. Only three men on a shift of twenty-eight had come over to say hello and ask after his—our—health; it was as if they sensed, correctly, that the man with the full beard was very different from the Detective Lieutenant Garth Frederickson they had known and worked with.
“I’m sorry you had to get out of bed on Christmas Eve, McCloskey,” Garth said evenly.
McCloskey shook his head impatiently, ran his right hand over his grizzled cheeks, then scratched his head. “Christmas Eve, my ass,” he said in his raspy voice. “It’s Christmas Day. My daughter’s here from Iowa with my two granddaughters. I really would have liked to see their faces when they open their presents.”
“Maybe you can still make it,” I said brightly, flashing a broad smile.
McCloskey looked at me for a long time, and he didn’t smile at all. “I seriously doubt that, Frederickson,” he said at last.
“Come on, Lieutenant; give us a break.”
“Give you a break?”
“What do you want from us? You’ve got our statement—and a very long one, I might add. We’re the ones who called the police, and we came over here right away.”
“Big deal. You knew you’d probably have been arrested and handcuffed if you hadn’t.”
“I don’t know that at all. You’ve read our statement; you’ve probably read it more than once. Garth and I haven’t done anything wrong.”
McCloskey’s black eyes flashed. “Jesus Christ, man, you’ve—”
“We’ve been fully cooperative, is what we’ve been—which is more than I might say of the police. We’ve been cooling our heels here for better than three hours now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You think you and your big brother get points for calling in and then coming over here? Considering the fact that two men were splattered all over the sidewalk in front of a certain building on Fifty-sixth Street, a building wholly owned by the famous Fredericksons, it’s not too hard to figure out where they fell from, is it? You really think you have any choice but to cooperate?”
“We’ve explained what happened.”
“And you really expect us to believe that they jumped from your roof?”
“Yeah. We expect you to believe that.”
“Both of them?”
“You’ve got it. They were linked together, holding hands, when they jumped. Garth and I tried to stop them, but they were too quick for us.”
“And you claim they were happy about jumping off the top of a four-story building?”
“That’s not what our statement says at all. We don’t claim to be psychiatrists, but to us it appeared that they’d worked themselves into a kind of trance with glossolalia—‘speaking in tongues.’ They were experiencing religious ecstacy, and it led to their taking their own lives.”
“Religious ecstacy?”
“A trance, self-hypnosis, religious ecstacy—call it what you want. I told you they were speaking in tongues.”
“How the hell do you know they were speaking in tongues—whatever that means?”
“Glossolalia is characteristic of some so-called Charismatic or Pentecostal Christians,” Garth interjected in a flat tone. “They believe that speaking in tongues is a gift from God, and they view it as evidence that they’re filled with the spirit of God.”
“Do they normally kill themselves while they’re speaking in tongues?” McCloskey said tersely.
Garth shook his head. “This group is beyond the pale, Lieutenant. Once you’ve heard someone speaking in tongues, you don’t forget what it sounds like. Mongo and I have heard it before in connection with this business. Craig Valley was making babbling sounds like that just before he killed himself, and we said so in our previous statement. Remember?”
McCloskey dismissed Garth’s words with a weary, slightly contemptuous, wave of his hand. His cold, black eyes fixed on my face. “You know what I think?” he said after a long pause, to me. “I think your big brother here killed those men.”
“You think wrong,” Garth said evenly. “You should look at a man when you’re accusing him of murder, Lieutenant.”
“I’ll damn well look at you, Frederickson!” McCloskey snapped, wheeling in his chair to face Garth, then wincing and putting a hand to his back. His body was now arched into a position that resembled a question mark, but his obvious pain served only to fuel his anger. “You were roughing them up! You’re an arrogant son-of-a-bitch who thinks he can get away with anything! They wouldn’t tell you what you wanted to hear, so you threw them off the fucking roof! You lost it, Frederickson, and you killed two men!”
“No,” Garth said simply. “That’s not what happened.”
“Bullshit! You roughed up Patton, and you threatened to kill him! You’re damn lucky he doesn’t want—”
“But I didn’t kill him, McCloskey; and I didn’t kill those two brothers.”
“But you were damn well roughing them up, weren’t you?! I know Goddamn well you were, but I don’t see any mention of it in your statement!”
“Look, Lieutenant,” I said quickly, “I can understand why it might b
e hard for you to believe that two men could suffer religious hysteria and kill themselves—if it hadn’t happened once already, with that crazy orchid keeper. I don’t think even you believe that we jabbed razors into Craig Valley’s throat. Well, we didn’t kill Valley, and we didn’t kill the two you found on the sidewalk. They killed themselves, just like Valley; just like Valley, they possessed information they considered vital, and which they didn’t want us to have.”
“Where to find a fucking pile of dirt?!”
“Yes, Lieutenant. Except that it’s not the dirt they’re worried about; it’s what else we’ll find when we find the dirt. Garth and I have already suggested that that’s something the police might want to give serious thought to looking into, but that’s your business.”
“And you say they killed themselves rather than risk having the two of you force the information out of them?”
“Yes.”
“Then you admit you were roughing them up?”
“Garth and I don’t admit to anything except for what you’ve got in that statement in front of you.”
“What were they doing up on your roof, Frederickson?”
“They followed us home.”
McCloskey laughed without humor, rolled his eyes. “And they followed you all the way up onto your roof?”
“Well … actually, we did sort of have to invite them to come up there. After all the time and effort they’d put into following us up to that point, it seemed the only decent thing to do.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass with me, Frederickson,” McCloskey said in a low, decidedly ominous voice. “You’re the one who’s asking me to take this statement seriously. I don’t think the two of you realize how very, very close you are to the inside of a jail cell.”
“All right, Lieutenant. We were rather insistent that they join us on the roof.”
“Oh, I know you were—the same as I know that you took them up there so that you could rough them up and frighten them.”
“No, Lieutenant. We took them up there to talk.”
“On your roof, in the middle of winter?!”
I glanced at Garth, looking for help. My brother seemed merely bored. “Well, uh … it was more private than the street, and certainly no colder.”
McCloskey picked up a piece of paper off the cluttered top of his desk and slowly crumpled it in his right hand. “I’ve got the famous Fredericksons,” he said softly, an odd catch in his voice. It was as if he was only now fully realizing how much serious damage he could do to us, and was trying to decide what he wanted to do about it. “I wonder what a jury would make of the nonsense you’re telling me? Two men fall to their deaths from your roof after you forced them to go up there with you. What did you want to do? Just talk. Why did they die? Religious ecstasy. Jesus Christ, I really think the famous Fredericksons may have gone too far this time.”
I was really thinking just about the same thing when Garth shifted in his chair and, in a maddeningly casual tone, asked, “Who were they, McCloskey?”
“Huh?” McCloskey blinked in surprise, but quickly recovered. “Look, I ask the questions here. Don’t you remember the routine?”
Garth tilted his head toward me. “Mongo, do you happen to have the number of Haggerty, Haggerty, Schwartz and Haggerty?”
Ah. The bugles of the cavalry. “I certainly do, brother.”
“I think it may be time to call our lawyers. What do you think?”
“I’m not sure. Let me ask the good lieutenant here.”
The good lieutenant’s face was flushed a deep red. “You sons-of-bitches,” he said in a voice that was quavering with rage. “You’re goddamn right it may be time for you to call your lawyers, and I don’t give a shit if they come from one of the most high-powered firms in New York and Washington. You tell those pin-striped shits that I’m thinking of booking the two of you on charges of first-degree homicide, and if they want to plea-bargain maybe the DA will let you off on an aggravated manslaughter charge, with relatively light prison sentences of five years. While you’re in prison, maybe both of you can learn a new trade.”
“Mongo?” Garth said evenly. “I don’t think he grasps the situation. Call our lawyers.”
“No, no, Garth. Just a second.” I looked at McCloskey, smiled, and hoped that I grasped the situation Garth was referring to. “Lieutenant, Garth has trouble communicating when he’s upset. I, on the other hand, tend to be almost infinitely patient, even under the most trying circumstances. So I’m going to try to interpret what he just said for you.”
I didn’t think McCloskey’s face could get any redder—but it did. “Are you calling me stupid, Frederickson?! I heard what he said! And you heard what I said!”
“Yes, but we don’t seem to be communicating. If you think you’re going to be safely retired at this time next week, with the Fredericksons out of your hair because you’ve booked us, you’re wrong. This case is a haunt; three men are dead, and somewhere a little girl is being sexually abused by a fugitive from justice. The NYPD threw this—us—in your lap, but if you think you can walk away from all of this with a clear conscience simply because you’ve laid heavy charges on us, you’re a lot stupider than I think you are. The kid will haunt you, McCloskey. So if you want to retire in peace, I suggest that you start showing us a little cooperation and listen.”
That got his attention. He blinked slowly, swallowed hard.
“We’ve been cooperative, Lieutenant,” I continued quickly, wanting to follow up before he’d had too much time to think about it. “But Garth asks you for one teeny-weeny bit of information, and you go nova on us. We’ve found out quite a few things up to this point, and we’ve freely shared our information with you. Who knows what else we may turn up? Frankly, Lieutenant, I don’t think you’re going to book us. You know why you’re not going to book us? Because Nuvironment definitely does not need the negative publicity we’ll be sure to generate for them. This is what Garth really meant when he asked me if I had the number of our lawyers.”
“You just hold on, Frederickson. I don’t work for Nuvironment.”
“You’re doing great, Mongo,” Garth said dryly. “It never fails to amaze me how you’re able to interpret my words for me.”
“I know you’re not working for Nuvironment, Lieutenant,” I said, casting an evil glance at my brother. I felt like a tap dancer in combat boots on a bare stage in a concert performance where someone kept speeding up the music. “And I certainly never meant to imply that you would cave in to pressures from people above you. But let’s face it: the fact that you’re here celebrating Christmas with us instead of with your daughter and grandchildren means that you’ve been assigned a watchdog role—and you can bet your about-to-retire ass that the decision to put you in the position you’re in was made at a high level. They want you to handle us, Lieutenant, not arrest us. Nuvironment definitely will not want publicity about the religious freaks the company appears to be linked with. And, frankly, when all is said and done, I just don’t think a jury, after we tell them what’s happened, is going to believe that the famous Fredericksons, with all they now have to lose, would throw it all away by throwing two guys to their deaths off their own roof. Come on, McCloskey.”
“But they might believe that the deaths arose out of aggravated assault,” the detective said through clenched teeth. “They might convict for manslaughter.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Still, I seriously doubt that either the NYPD or the DA’s office would want to be cast in a bad light. If you’ll recall, this started out as a pro bono investigation of a child sexual abuse case by two noted, if you’ll permit me to say so, private investigators. As far as Garth and I are concerned, that’s still all it is. At the beginning, we went to the appropriate authorities, and they pledged to cooperate with us. We’re going to keep at it, Lieutenant—even if it’s through our lawyers, from behind bars. In my opinion, you and the department aren’t going to improve your images if it looks like you’re harassing us because of pressure fr
om a private corporation that has right-wing—and possibly neo-Nazi—religious loonies on its staff, tolerates child sexual abuse, and is almost certainly harboring a fugitive. We didn’t kill those men, Lieutenant, and I think you know it. What Garth was trying to say is that it’s still possible for us to work together. No lawyers to stir up excitement—no charges.”
McCloskey took some time to think about it. He clenched and unclenched his fists, finally leaned back in his chair and swiveled around to face Garth. “That’s what I thought you were saying, Frederickson,” he said quietly.
Garth looked at me, smiled thinly. “That Mongo has such a silver tongue, doesn’t he, McCloskey? But then, I thought what I was saying was obvious.”
“So who were those guys, Lieutenant?” I asked. “What’s their story? We know they worked for Nuvironment, but there must be more. I’m sure we can read all about them tomorrow in the newspapers, but we’re probably going to be so busy dodging reporters that we won’t have much time to read. What can you tell us about them?”
McCloskey slumped in his chair, sighed, and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes. “Christ, Frederickson, I’m tired,” he said, apparently speaking to Garth. “I wish I could get out of here like you did. I’ve got a real bad feeling about this thing. I don’t think I can afford a mistake, and nobody is willing to tell me what the ground rules are.”
“One more week,” Garth said not unkindly. “I hear what you’re saying. Under the circumstances, every day for the next seven days is probably going to feel like a week—or maybe a year. Mongo and I can’t really advise you, but it seems to me that you’ll be in the clear as long as you do your job.”
“Yeah? I’m not sure my job shouldn’t be to arrest the two of you and charge you with murder.”
“Then do it,” Garth replied evenly. “Either arrest us, or believe that we’re innocent and that your job as a cop is to help us stop a madman from sexually abusing a little girl. It’s your retirement you’re looking for—but it’s your choice as to how best to do your job until next week at this time.” Garth paused, then actually laughed. “Hey, McCloskey, if you want, Mongo and I will serve as your character witnesses if you get brought up on any departmental charges in the next seven days.”
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