The body was mangled. It doesn’t look right, Abbie thought.
“DAD, CAN YOU HEAR ME?” She leaned farther out and saw the outline of the huge gray concrete base that supported the bridge.
He must have slammed into it, breaking his bones. I have to get him up or he’s going to be smashed to a pulp.
But as she watched, she realized the body was swinging free, missing the edges of the concrete base by a few feet. Why did the body appear so mangled and broken?
She made out a tiny thin line of black around its neck. The same line along the top of the shoulder just above the arm. And the left. And then she saw something that turned her stomach.
She swiveled and slammed her back against the railing, sliding down. She collapsed, relief and horror surging through her. Thank you, thank you, Lord.
Down below, the body swung freely through the pelting rain. It had to be Joe Kane. And his head was facing the wrong way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
PERELLI WALKED INTO THE MEETING AND SLAMMED DOWN A FOUR-INCH stack of files.
He coughed.
Abbie sat in a chair in a corner. Her eyes were circled with black. She felt if someone touched her, she would tip over into some kind of bottomless dream. The room was filled with men: O’Halloran, Alexander, Z, Perelli, plus some others, men she assumed were from the mayor’s office, standing awkwardly in the corners. The edges of the faces around her were blurred. She needed caffeine or sleep.
“Okay, let’s get this started.”
He looked over to Abbie, who didn’t lift her head.
“Detective Kearney, you want to tell us how you knew to look for the latest victim on the Peace Bridge? Do you have information you want to share with this department? Or its goddamn chief?”
Abbie looked over at Z. They hadn’t had a chance to talk. He didn’t meet her eyes.
“It wasn’t information. It was a hunch.”
“That was a hell of a hunch. Please elaborate. And I want you to leave nothing out. Nothing, understood?”
Abbie’s head felt heavy. She felt she was drugged, even though she had barely closed her eyes the night before. What was the densest matter on earth? Some kind of metal, she thought. The name fled her brain.
“Abbie?”
She looked up. Perelli was staring at her, his anger masked by what appeared to be fear.
“Yes?”
“It’s your meeting.”
She glanced around at the faces. They turned away, all except for Z, who nodded and gave her a go-get-’em smile. She must look like hell.
“What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with Joe Kane.”
Abbie felt a wavelet of nausea lap at the base of her skull. The other two hadn’t bothered her as much, but what had happened to Kane …
“Do you need a moment?”
“He was …”
“Yes?”
“He was cut up and put back together again. Backwards. The head was sawed off, then sewn back onto the neck just above the collarbone with sailing thread. We found a store at the marina had been broken into. That’s probably where he got it.”
The room was still.
“The arms, the same thing. Cut off and rotated 180 degrees. And the legs. The tongue was cut out and not found with the body. Kane’s penis was cut off and inserted into his anus. The monkey was found inserted above the severed right arm before it was reattached to the body.”
She’d stood by the coroner as he did the examination. What bothered her was how the body looked. A Frankenstein job, she thought, but didn’t Dr. Frankenstein want to create a human being? Wasn’t it a noble experiment gone wrong? She couldn’t remember, but she thought so.
This killer wanted only to destroy. The reversed feet pressing against the stainless-steel table made the stiff body stick up, as if it were shoving its shorn genitals into the air. At first, the Latino mortuary assistant hadn’t known whether to lay the body on its back. He’d looked at her, confused. She’d told him to proceed the way the body was.
“My working theory for the last few days is that the killer has been telling us his life story. More importantly, he’s been telling the victims, showing them how he lived at certain points in his life. Obviously he feels they are responsible. So he is forcing them to relive his pain and anguish.
“Jimmy Ryan was forced into a very confined space. Marty Collins was made to feel as cold as humanly possible. And now Joe Kane …
“The killer feels violated in some way. Reversing the head and the limbs … it’s like a distress signal. Something terrible was done to this man—and not just physically. Or not primarily physically. He feels his humanity was violated. And then what he did with the genitals. I’m guessing he was raped.”
“That sounds like prison.”
“A lot of it sounds like prison. Confinement, cold, possibly sexual abuse.”
O’Halloran cut in. “Okay. But how did you know to look on the Peace Bridge?”
“Like I said. It was a hunch. It began with the information about Jimmy Ryan’s earlier arrest. He was caught on the Peace Bridge.”
“Yeah. And?”
“He wasn’t found with guns or drugs. The Clan wasn’t exporting either of those. I should have made the connection.”
It wasn’t entirely true. The light that had gone on in her head had to do with Mrs. Ryan’s face days after her son had been killed. It was a special calm, the calm of a martyr’s mother. If Jimmy had been bringing in dope or AK-47s, even if they somehow benefited the IRA, the woman’s face would have been lined with shame and grief. She knew the County too well. Mrs. Ryan’s behavior was all wrong for a drug mule’s or a gunrunner’s mother. It was right for something else.
Her eyes had been shining. As if her son’s death had finally revealed some meaning to her. The truth of Jimmy’s wayward life.
The phone call to Reinholdt twenty minutes ago had confirmed her thinking. It fit now.
“What connection?”
“The Clan weren’t exporters. Just the opposite.”
Perelli sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
“Why are you fucking with me, Abbie?”
She looked at him.
“They were importers. We had it backward.”
“Importers of what?”
“Isn’t it clear? People.”
“People!” Perelli barked. O’Halloran, sitting next to him, quietly wiped some spittle from his face.
“I should have caught it when Reinholdt told me originally. For a hundred years, the Clan was a full-service support organization for the IRA. They supplied money, political support, votes for pro-IRA candidates in the U.S. But that was happening all over the Northeast. Buffalo was nothing special. There was only one thing the Buffalo branch could do better than any other, because of where the city is geographically.”
“And what’s that?”
“Make Irish rebels disappear.”
Perelli rubbed his eyes.
“When the Italian mob had someone that was bringing them too much attention in America, what did they do?” Abbie said.
Perelli frowned. He hated questions about the Italian mob.
“They got rid of them.”
“How?”
“Shipped them back to Italy.”
“Exactly. Well, the IRA had the same problem. They had members who’d done things in Northern Ireland that made them marked men, hunted by the British cops and special forces. If they walked out onto a street in Belfast, they’d be spotted in a minute. If they hid, informants could always turn them in. And if they were caught, they could be worked on and turned into informers themselves. So they were sent to America.”
“Through Canada is what you’re saying.”
“Yes, through Canada. The direct route was too suspicious and heavily watched. They had to bring them over a border. And in Mexico, a pale Irishman would be as easy to spot as … as …”
Her brain refused to go any further.
&n
bsp; “As a polar bear in Africa,” Z piped up.
“Thank you. So they brought them through Canada. That’s probably why Jimmy Ryan was brought in. He’d taken drugs across before, he had the connections, maybe he knew a guard or two at the bridge who would look the other way for a cut. Gerald Decatur, as well. They worked the border together. That’s why none of the Clan members were flashing money, like they would have with drugs or guns. They weren’t bringing in money. And that’s probably why the Gaelic Club tried to keep it a secret. The people they brought in may still be living here.”
“Here?”
“Here in the country. How many stayed in Buffalo? Who knows? My father is the last member of the Clan left, and he’s not talking. But the whole Irish community had an interest in keeping quiet what they did.”
“So we think the killer is … an IRA guy?” O’Halloran said, his brow creased with thought.
“That’s my guess. He was brought across the bridge into the hands of the Clan and then … something went wrong. Maybe Kane and the others didn’t find him the job he wanted. Maybe he hated America. Maybe he never wanted to leave Northern Ireland. And he started killing the men who brought him over.”
“A lot of fucking maybes,” O’Halloran mumbled.
“You have a better theory?”
O’Halloran said nothing, just stared at her, then dropped his gaze to her chest. She looked away in disgust and turned to Perelli.
“So long story short, that’s why I went to the bridge. I heard on the radio about a possible suicide. I saw something that looked like a man up there. It fit. It was the next chapter in the story the killer is telling.”
“Do we know what happened to these killers after the Clan brought them across?” Perelli asked wearily.
“We can only guess, but an Irish accent in the County would barely be noticed. Plenty of the old folk still have brogues, and there are enough cousins and nephews coming to visit them from Dublin or wherever so that the accent doesn’t stand out. Jobs could be found, fake IDs. Once they were here, they could disappear. There are lots of ways. The Clan sponsored Gaelic lessons. Who were the teachers? The IRA is full of Gaelic speakers—it’s part of their program of getting rid of British influence. Or if they played the accordion, they could become a visiting musician. Nobody asks questions in the County. It’s perfect.”
Perelli stared past her.
“And these men were, what?”
“Freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on how you look at it. But they were the ones the British wanted the most, the ones too hot to ship down to the South and to try and hide in Dublin.”
“So what you’re trying to tell me,” said Perelli, standing up and leaning his hands on the conference table, which protested with a low groan, “is that the IRA shipped its most notorious killers here to Buffalo, gave them false identities and just … let ’em loose?”
He stared openmouthed at Abbie with a sickened look on his face.
Abbie nodded.
Silence.
“Fuckin’ Micks,” said O’Halloran, but the joke died.
“Most of the rebels, I’m going to guess, weren’t killers at heart. They were men who believe in a cause. Once they were removed from their environment, they went straight. They’re probably spread out from New York to San Francisco now.”
“Except for one.”
Abbie nodded. She wanted to sleep, to forget the night before.
But now the killer had slipped past her again. He was further away than ever before.
“One of them wasn’t doing it for Ireland. That was just a convenient excuse for him. He was killing because he liked killing.”
Perelli’s head was in his hands. He nodded. “Okay. So we know his background, which helps a little. But what exactly are we looking for?”
Abbie slumped back in her chair. The killer’s face was a blank to her, a buzzing void, cloaked by black electricity.
“He’s about five foot nine, give or take an inch either way, judging by the Lucky Clover tape. He’s right-handed. He likes to wear a black ski mask. He may have a strange way of speaking, with a trace of an Irish brogue. He may try to disguise this. He most likely did prison time. And we need to contact the British authorities in Ireland to get the mortuary records of every IRA-related killing in the past thirty years.”
“Why?”
“Because from what I saw, he’s not new to this. He knows how to cut up a body.”
The room went silent. Finally, Perelli looked up as if he was surprised the detectives were still there.
“You heard her,” he barked. “Find me a list of those fucks the Clan brought to my city. And find it fast.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
WHEN ABBIE STEPPED OUTSIDE, SHE FOUND A SNOW SQUALL SWIRLING around the building, whipping snow horizontally across her face. As she began to walk, following the direction of the snow, she felt the wind press a cold hand between her shoulder blades, even through her thick down coat. It seemed to be urging her forward.
She turned the building’s corner and the wind swooped around with her, blowing her hair past her cheeks with a fresh gust of power. Her boots crunched on two or three inches of freshly fallen snow, heavy with moisture, the kind of stuff you prayed for as a kid, perfect for making snowballs. Abbie saw the Saab—covered by a fresh blanket of snow—through a curtain of blowing white flakes and reached a gloved hand into her pocket, taking out the keys. She was about to hit the unlock button when suddenly she froze stock-still.
The monkey face drawn on the hood of her car wasn’t an exact replica of the toys found at the murder scenes, but it was close enough.
She walked hurriedly to the Saab. The lines of the monkey face, already filling with snow, had obviously been carved with a finger. They would have been wearing gloves, though; no need to get the techs out here. Underneath the foot-high face, which she could see had a pronounced frown and two slit eyes, she saw an arrow sign pointing to her driver’s-side wheel.
Abbie spun around. The streets around her were abandoned except for a few shadowy figures clutching the lapels of their coats around their necks and leaning into the stiff wind. None of them took any particular interest in her. Just office workers trying to get home before the storm shut down the roads.
She reached under her jacket and felt the butt of the Glock, then edged toward the driver’s side of the Saab. Nobody crouching there. She reached into the wheel well and felt around. The note was taped to the metal body just above the wheel. She ripped it out, then hurriedly hit the unlock button, slid into the Saab’s driver’s seat, turned the key in the ignition, and waited for the heater to blow hot.
When the air in the car had nudged above arctic levels, she opened the note. Three lines written in block letters using a black ballpoint pen.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT JOE KANE, WALK ONTO THE LAKE AT DAWN TOMORROW FROM THE SMALL BOAT HARBOR. WALK DIRECTLY NORTH, TOWARD THE HUT WITH THE RED ROOF COME ALONE.
Abbie listened to the blast of the heater as she thought. Why the lake? It was frozen now straight across to the Canadian shore. It was safe to walk across, but the only people out there this time of year were the ice fishermen, who spent hours in their huts or tents waiting for the northern pike to bite. Abbie thought they went out there just to get away from their wives and to drink beer.
The more she thought about it, the better a spot it was. There was no way to bring backup or to approach without being seen. Anyone walking out there would be as exposed as a black bug on sugar. The only way off the ice quickly was by snowmobile. Impossible to set a trap, unless she got the whole Department involved. And the person who wrote the note knew she wasn’t about to do that.
She wasn’t even going to tell Z, she decided. Because he would tell her not to go.
John Kearney lay in his hospital bed, watching Judge Judy. The words did not go together. He couldn’t tell who was accused of what, though he’d taken an immediate dislike to the man on the left, who was l
eaning aggressively over the lectern at the judge. He was big, Spanish, and his face was shaped like a pineapple.
John seemed to be looking out at the world from behind a fogged screen. He could see things but not touch them. He could hear but not speak. As weak as a baby sparrow. That’s what his mother had said to him, all those years ago, up in the hatefully cold house on the top of the stone hill in West Clare. When he broke something, or he rode the horse so hard it would stand in the barn shaking, its flanks coated with sweat.
“John,” she said, smiling, “enjoy your strength now. It won’t be with you forever.”
Always smiling, his mother. And what did she have to smile about? A drunk for a husband, a terror for an only surviving child, her daughter dead in the ground after getting TB from the cow’s milk.
The nurse looked at him now as he moaned loudly.
Siobhan, his sister, struggling in the bed, burning through the sheets back in Clare. And the knock on the door the night before she passed. Every time someone was about to die in the small towns of Ireland, it was believed—no, more than believed, it was known—that just when their spirit had decided to leave the body but hadn’t yet gone, four knocks would be heard. And the night before Siobhan died, his mother had been sitting by her bedside in that stone house, he in his bed in the corner, not asleep but watching.
The four sharp raps on the door, so sharp you felt the knucklebone.
How his mother had screamed. He tried to close his eyes but they wouldn’t obey.
John had known the minute he heard her cry that he would leave Ireland. The country had killed his sister, but it wouldn’t kill him.
The nurse turned and looked at him with a concerned face.
Jaysus, had he screamed just now? Ever since the Alzheimer’s had started, the far past had been more real to him than the passing moment. It was as if he was falling back, falling back to what would never leave him, and that was Clare and hunger and boyhood.
His mother had known death was coming for her daughter. She’d known she was going to lose quiet, dutiful Siobhan, the one she confided to and leaned on when her husband and son lacerated her heart with drink or fighting in the town. Her only solace. Why had God not taken him instead?
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