Dark Hollow

by John Connolly

  And her lips, the lips that had kissed me softly barely three nights before, that once were red and welcoming and now were cold and blue,

  say bye-bye

  her lips had been sewn together with thick black thread, the stitches crisscrossing from top to bottom in ragged V shapes, a tangled knot of thread at one corner so that it would not work itself through the hole while the stitches were still being put in place.

  I moved closer and it was only then that I saw the child. His body had been obscured by the couch but, as I walked, his small, covered feet became visible, and then the rest of his body, dressed in purple Barney the dinosaur rompers. There was blood around his head, blood caked in his fine blonde hair and blood on the corner of the windowsill where his head had impacted.

  Ellis was beside me. "There's bruising to his face. We figure whoever did this hit him, maybe while he was crying, maybe because he got in the way. The force of the blow knocked him into the windowsill and broke his skull."

  I shook my head and remembered how the little boy had flailed at me as I touched his mother the night before.

  "No," I said, and I squeezed my eyes shut hard as the burning became too much. And I thought of my own child, lost to me now, and the others, their bodies wrapped in plastic, bodies buried beneath the earth of a damp cellar in Queens, tiny faces in jars, a small host of the lost stretching into the darkness, walking hand in hand to oblivion.

  "No, he didn't just cry," I said. "He was trying to save her."

  While the bodies were placed in white body bags to be taken to Augusta for autopsy, I walked through the apartment. There was only one bedroom, although it was wide and long and held a double bed and a smaller bed with retractable side bars for Donald. There was a pine chest of drawers and a matching pine wardrobe, and a box piled high with toys beside a small bookshelf stacked with picture books. In one corner, beside the open closet door, an evidence technician dusted for fingerprints.

  And the sight of the clothes stacked neatly on the shelves, and the toys packed away in their box, brought back a memory that speared me through the heart. Less than one year before, I had stood in our small house on Hobart Street in Brooklyn and, in the space of one night, had gone through the possessions of my dead wife and child, sorting, discarding, smelling the last traces of them that clung to their clothing like the ghosts of themselves. My Susan and my Jennifer: their blood was still on the kitchen walls and there were chalk marks on the floor where the chairs had stood, the chairs to which they had been tied and in which they had been mutilated while the husband and father who should have protected them was propping up a bar.

  And I thought, as I stood in Rita's bedroom: who will take their clothes and sort them now? Who will feel the cotton of her blouse between his fingers, caressing it until the material holds the stains of his prints like a seal? Who will take her underwear, her pink bras without the support wiring (for her breasts were so very small), and hold them carefully, recalling, before he puts them away forever, how he used to undo the clasps with just one hand, the weight of her forcing the straps apart, the cups gently falling?

  Who will take her lipstick and run his finger along the edge, knowing that this, too, was a place she touched, that no lips but hers had ever touched it before, or would ever touch it again. Who will see the small traces of a fingertip in her blusher, or carefully unwind each strand of hair from her brush, as if by doing so he might begin to remake her again, piece by piece, atom by atom?

  And who will take the child's toys? Who will spin the wheels on a bright, plastic truck? Who will test a button nose, the glass eyes of a bear, the upraised trunk of a white elephant? And who will pack away those small clothes, those little shoes, with laces that young fingers had not yet learned to master?

  Who will do all these things, these small services for the dead, these acts of remembrance more powerful in their way than the most ornate memorial? In parting with what was once theirs they became, in that moment, intimately, intensely present, for the ghost of a child is still, for all that, a child, and the memory of a love is still, even decades later, love.

  I stood outside the apartment in the cold winter sunlight and watched as the bodies were removed. They had been dead for no more than ten hours, according to Vaughan, possibly less; the precise time of death would take longer to establish, for a number of reasons, including the cold in the drafty old apartment and the nature of Rita Ferris's death. Rigor mortis had set into the small muscles at the eyelids, the lower jaw and the neck, gradually spreading to the other muscles of their bodies, although in Rita Ferris the process of rigor mortis was hastened by her death struggles.

  Rigor mortis is caused by the disappearance of the energy source for muscle contraction, called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. ATP usually dissipates entirely four hours after death, leaving the muscles rigid until decomposition starts to occur. But if the victim struggles before death, then the ATP energy source becomes depleted during the struggle and rigor mortis sets in more quickly. That would have to be taken into account in the case of Rita, so Vaughan reckoned that Donald Purdue would provide a more accurate estimate of the time of death.

  There was fixed lividity on the underside of both bodies, where gravity had drawn the blood down, which normally occurs six to eight hours after death, and pressure applied to the area of lividity did not cause "blanching" or whitening, since the blood had already clotted, meaning that they had been dead for at least five hours. Thus the window for a time of death was certainly greater than five hours but probably not in excess of eight hours to ten hours. There was no fixed lividity on the backs of either body, which meant that they had not been moved after death. They had not been dead when I had tried to find Rita the night before. Maybe she had been shopping, or visiting friends. If I had found her, could I have warned her? Could I have saved her, saved them both?

  Ellis walked over to me, where I stood away from the throng of curious onlookers.

  "Anything strike you about it?" he asked.

  "No," I said. "Not yet." I began to remove the set of overalls I has been wearing to prevent me from contaminating the crime scene.

  "You think of anything, you let us know, y'hear?"

  But my attention had already been distracted. Two men in plainclothes flashed ID at the cop keeping the crowds back and made their way into the building. I didn't need to see what was in their wallets to know what they were.

  "Feds," I said.

  Behind them, a taller figure with jet-black hair and wearing a conservative blue suit followed.

  "Special Agents Samson and Doyle, out of Boston" said Ellis. "And the Canadian cop, Eldritch. They were here earlier. Guess they don't trust us."

  I turned to him. "What do I not know here?"

  He reached into his pocket and removed a clear plastic evidence bag. It contained four hundred-dollar bills, consecutively numbered, still crisp and new but with a fold where Rita Ferris had stored them in her purse.

  "Let's barter," said Ellis. "Know anything about these?"

  There was no way to avoid the issue. "They look like the bills Billy Purdue gave me for Rita as part of the child-support payments."

  "Thanks," he said, and started to walk away. I could see that he was angry at me, although I wasn't sure why.

  I reached out and gripped him by the upper arm. He didn't look happy about it but I didn't care. My gesture attracted the attention of two uniformed cops, but Ellis waved them away.

  "Don't be presuming on my good humor, Bird," he warned, looking at my hand on his arm. "Why didn't you tell me that he gave you this money?"

  I didn't release my grip. "I couldn't have known that the money was important," I said. "Come on, Ellis, I liked Rita a lot. Help me out here."

  He frowned, then replied: "Just testing, I guess. You want to let go of my arm now? My fingers are going numb."

  I took away my hand and he rubbed his arm gently.

  "Still working out, I see." He glanced back toward the apart
ment building, but the feds and the Canadian cop were still inside.

  "That business out at Prouts Neck a couple of nights back?" he began.

  "Yeah, I watch the news. A dead Irish-American fed, three dead Italians and four dead Cambodians: an equal-opportunity slaughter. What about it?"

  "There was another player. Took out Paulie Block and Jimmy Fribb with a pump-action, and that's not all he took."

  "Go on."

  "There was a trade going on at the Neck, cash in exchange for something else. The feds were tipped off to it when Paulie Block and Chester Nash turned up in Portland. They figure a ransom, for someone who was already dead. Norfolk County Sheriff's Office down in Massachusetts dug up a body out by the Larz Anderson Park yesterday, a Canadian national named Thani Pho. A dog sniffed her out."

  "Let me guess," I interrupted. "Thani Pho was of Cambodian extraction."

  Ellis nodded. "Seems she was a freshman student at Harvard; her bag was found with her. Autopsy indicated that she'd been raped, then buried alive. They found earth in her throat. The way the feds and this guy Eldritch figure it, Tony Celli's crew kidnapped the girl, pulled a double cross on the Cambodians and then blew them away under the noses of the feds. It's their mess, and the Scarborough PD has been sidelined. Now the main focus of the investigation is Boston and the feds are concentrating their attention on Tony Celli. Those two agents are just clearing up loose ends."

  "Who paid the ransom?"

  He shrugged. "The FBI Free Information Store closed for business at that point, but they believe that the exchange and the murder of Thani Pho are connected: there has to be a Canadian angle if this guy Eldritch is involved. Feds have a record of the numbers on the bills. They came from a bank in Toronto, and they match the bills that fell from the ransom stash out at the Neck and the hundred dollar bills you gave to Rita Ferris. Trouble is, the rest of the cash is gone, and that's where the other player comes in."

  "How much?"

  "I heard two mil, maybe more."

  I pushed my hands through my hair and kneaded the muscles on the back of my neck. Billy Purdue: the guy was like some kind of infernal ricocheting bullet, bouncing off people and destroying lives until he ran out of energy or something stopped him. If what Ellis said was true, then Billy had somehow heard of Tony Celli's deal at the Neck, may even have been involved somewhere lower down the scale, and decided to make a big score, maybe in the hope of getting his ex-wife and son back and carving out a new life somewhere else, somewhere he could leave the past behind.

  "You still think Billy killed Rita and his own son?" I asked quietly.

  "Possibly," shrugged Ellis. "I don't see anyone else on the horizon."

  "And sewed her mouth shut with black thread?"

  "I don't know. If he's crazy enough to cross Tony Celli, he's crazy enough to sew up his old lady."

  But I knew that he didn't believe what he was saying. The money changed everything. There were people who would cause a lot of pain to get their hands on that kind of cash, and Tony Celli was one of them, especially since he probably felt that it was his money to begin with. Still, the damage to Rita's mouth didn't fit. Neither did the fact that she hadn't been tortured. Whoever killed her didn't do it in the course of trying to find out something from her. She was killed because someone wanted her dead, and her mouth was sewn up because that same someone wanted to send a message to whoever found her.

  Two million dollars: that money was going to bring a storm of trouble down on everybody's head-from Tony Celli, maybe from the guys he tried to double-cross. Jesus, what a mess. I didn't know it then, but the money had attracted others too, individuals who were anxious to secure it for their own ends and didn't care who they killed to get it.

  But Billy Purdue, by his actions, had also drawn someone else, someone who didn't care about money, or the Boston crew, or a dead child, or a young woman who was trying to make a better life for herself. He had come back to claim something as his own, and to avenge himself on all those who had kept him from it, and God help anyone who got in his way.

  Winter had come howling down from the north, and he had come with it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When Ellis had left I stood for a time, considering whether or not to leave the police to their work. Instead of simply driving away, I reentered the apartment building and walked up to the third floor. The door to apartment five had been freshly painted a bright, cheerful yellow, small paint flecks still freckling the brass numeral. I knocked gently and the door opened on a chain. In the gap, a small dark face appeared about four feet from the ground, its features framed by black curls, its eyes wide and wondering.

  "Come away from there, child," said a voice and then a taller, darker figure filled the gap. I could see the resemblance in the two faces almost instantly.

  "Mrs. Mims?" I asked.

  "Ms. Mims," she corrected. "And I just finished talking to a police officer not twenty minutes ago."

  "I'm not with the police, ma'am." I showed her my ID. She examined it carefully without touching it, her daughter straining up on her toes to do the same, then glanced back at my face. "I remember you," she said. "You called here, couple of nights back."

  "That's right. I knew Rita. Can I come in for a moment?"

  She bit down gently on her lower lip, then nodded and closed the door. I could hear the chain being removed before the door swung open again, revealing a bright, large-ceilinged room. The couch inside was blue and decorated with yellow throws, its legs set on a bare varnished floor. Two tall bookshelves crammed with paperbacks stood at either side of an old, stained marble fireplace, and there was a portable stereo on a stand by the window close to a combination TV and VCR. The room smelled of flowers and opened to the right onto a short hallway, presumably leading to the bedroom and bathroom, and on the left into a small, clean kitchen. The walls had been newly painted a soft yellow, so that the room seemed to be bathed in sunlight.

  "You have a nice place. You do all this yourself?"

  She nodded, proud despite herself.

  "I helped her," piped the girl. She was maybe eight or nine, and it was possible to see in her the seeds of a beauty that would eventually grow to outshine her mother's.

  "You'll have to start hiring yourself out," I said. "I know people who'd pay a lot of money for a job as good as this. Including me."

  The girl giggled shyly and her mother reached out and gave her a little hug around the shoulders. "Go on now, child. Go and play while I talk with Mr. Parker here."

  She did as she was told, casting a small, anxious look back as she entered the hallway. I smiled to reassure her, and she gave a little smile back.

  "She's a beautiful girl," I said.

  "Takes after her father," she replied, her voice thick with sarcasm.

  "I don't think so. He around?"

  "No. He was a worthless sonofabitch, so I kicked him out. Last I heard, he was a drain on the economy of New Jersey."

  "Best place for him."

  "Amen to that. You want coffee? Tea maybe?"

  "Coffee would be fine." I didn't really want it, but I figured it might take the strain out of the situation a little. Ms. Mims seemed like a pretty tough woman. If she decided to be unhelpful, a steel hull wouldn't be enough to break the ice.

  After a few minutes, she emerged from the kitchen with two mugs, placed them carefully on coasters on a low pine table, then went back to the kitchen for milk and sugar. When she returned we sat, and I noticed for the first time that, as she held her coffee, her hand was shaking. She caught my look, and raised her left hand to try to still the mug.

  "It's not easy," I said softly. "When something of this kind happens, it's like a stone dropped in a pool. It ripples out, and everything gets tossed in its wake."

  She nodded. "Ruth's been asking me about it. I haven't told her that they're dead. I haven't figured out how to tell her yet."

  "Did you know Rita well?"

  "I knew her a little. I knew more by reputa
tion. I knew about her husband, knew he almost killed them in a fire." She paused. "You think he did this?"

  "I don't know. I hear he was around lately."

  "I've seen him, once or twice, watching the place. I told Rita, but she only called the police that last time he got roaring drunk. The rest of the time, she seemed content to let him be. I think she felt sorry for him."

  "Were you here last night?"

  She nodded, then paused. "I went to bed early-women's troubles, you know? I took two Tylenol, drank a shot of whiskey and didn't wake up until this morning. I went downstairs, saw Rita's door was open, and went in. That's when I found them. I can't help thinking that if I hadn't taken the pills, hadn't had a drink…" She swallowed loudly and tried not to cry. I looked away for a moment, and when I turned back she seemed to have composed herself.

  "Was there anything else bothering her, anyone else?" I continued.

  Again, there was a pause, but this one spoke volumes. I waited, but she didn't speak. "Ms. Mims…" I began.

  "Lucy," she said.

  "Lucy," I said gently. "You can't say anything to hurt her now. But if you do know something that might help to find whoever did this then, please, tell me."

  She sipped her coffee. "She was short of money. I knew, because she told me. There was a woman helped her out, but it still wasn't enough. I offered her some, but she wouldn't take it. Said she had found a way to make a little on the side."

  "Did she say how?"

  "No, but I looked after Donnie while she was gone. Three times, each at short notice. The third time, she came back and I could see she'd been crying. She looked scared, but wouldn't tell me what had happened, just said that she wouldn't need me to watch Donnie no more, that the job hadn't worked out."

  "Did you tell the police this?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know why I didn't. It was just that… she was a good person, you know? I think she was just doing what she had to do to make ends meet. But if I told the police, it would have become something else, something low."