Alex Cross 16 (14 page)

"Nana's in a coma, Daddy. They don't know if she's going to wake up or not."

"Shhh. I know, I know. I'm here now." I felt her go from stiff to limp as the tears started. Jannie was so strong and so fragile at the same time.
Just like Nana,
I couldn't help thinking as I held her. "Have you seen her?" I asked.

She nodded against my chest. "Only for a minute or so. The nurse told me I had to wait out here."

"Come on," I said, taking her hand. "I think I need you for this." We found Bree sitting next to Nana's bed, in the same chair I'd slept in the night before. She got up and put her arms around both of us.

"I'm so glad you're here," she whispered.

"What happened?" I whispered back. In case Nana could hear, I suppose.

"Her kidney function just spiraled, Alex. They have her on dialysis now, and she's back on the hydralazine, the beta blockers . . ."

I could barely hear Bree's words, or sort out their meaning. My legs were weak, my head spinning in fast little circles.

Nothing could have prepared me for how much worse Nana looked.

She was on the ventilator again, this time with a tracheotomy right into her throat. There was a feeding tube in her nose now, and the dialysis too. But the worst by far was Nana's face — all pinched and drawn down, like she was in pain. I had thought she would just look asleep, but it was much worse than that. I squeezed in to sit by her. "It's Alex. I'm here now. It's Alex, old woman." I felt as if I were on the opposite side of a thick piece of glass from Nana. I could talk to her and touch her and see her, but I couldn't actually reach her, and it was the most helpless sensation I'd ever known. I had this terrible sick feeling that I knew what was coming next.

I'm usually good in a crisis — it's what I do for a living — but I was barely holding it together. When Jannie came over to stand beside me, I didn't bother to try and hide the tears coming down my cheeks. This wasn't just happening to Nana. It was happening to all of us.

And as we sat there watching Nana, a tear ran down her cheek.

"Nana,"
we all said at once. But she didn't speak back to us or even try to open her eyes. There was just that single tear.

But eventually it sank in for me that all Nana ever wanted was the truth, whatever that happened to be. So I started to tell her about my day. Just like we had always talked, never thinking about the reality that our talks page 56

would have to end eventually.

"I had to kill someone today," I said.

It seemed like there should have been more to say about that, once I'd said it out loud, but I just sat there quietly. I guess this was where Nana was supposed to come in.

And then she kind of did — a memory, anyway, from an earlier time when we had a similar conversation.
Did he have a family, Alex?

Nana had asked me that before anything else. I was twenty-eight at the time. It was an armed robbery, at a little grocery store in Southeast. I wasn't even on duty when it happened, just on my way home. The man's name, I'll never forget, was Eddie Clemmons. It was the first time anyone had ever shot at me, and the first time I'd ever fired in self-defense.

And yes,
I told Nana,
he had a wife, though he didn't live
with her. And two children.
I remember standing there in the front hall on Fifth Street with my coat still on. Nana had been carrying a basket of wash when I came in, and we ended up sitting down on the stairs, folding clothes and talking about the shooting. I thought it was strange at first, how she kept handing me things to fold. Then, after a while, I realized that at some point, my life would start to feel normal again.

You're going to be fine,
she had said to me.
Maybe not quite
the same, but still, just fine. You're a police
officer.

She was right, of course. Maybe that was why I needed so badly to have the same conversation again now. It was strange, but all I really wanted was for her to tell me it was going to be okay. I picked up her hand and kissed it and pressed it against my cheek — anything to connect with her, I guess.

"Everything's going to be all right, Nana," I said.

But I couldn't tell if that was the truth or not, or exactly whom I might be lying to.

My aunt Tia set her big canvas knitting bag down at my feet. I'd been awake and then asleep again half a dozen times through the night; it was strange being here, with no windows and no real sense of time, and Nana so sick.

She looked about the same to me this a.m. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. A little of both, maybe. "I'm going to wait for morning rounds," I told Tia.

"No, sweetheart, you're going to go." She nudged my arm to get me out of the chair. "There's not enough room in here, and Tia's calves are killing her. So go on. Go to work. Then you can come back and tell Nana all about it, just like you always do."

The knitting came out automatically, with the big colorful wooden needles she always used, and I saw a thermos and a
USA Today
in the bag too. The way she settled right in made me remember she'd been through this before, with my uncle, then with her younger sister, Anna. My aunt was almost a professional at caring for the very sick and dying.

"I was going to bring you some of that David Whyte you like," Tia said. At first I thought she was talking to me. "But then I thought no, let's keep you riled up, so I brought the
newspaper
instead. You know they're outsourcing the statue for Dr. King's memorial to China?
China?
Do you believe that, Regina?" Tia's not a sentimental woman, but in her own way, she's a saint. I also knew there was no chance she'd let Nana catch her crying, coma or no coma. I leaned down and kissed the top of Tia's head. Then I kissed Nana too.

"Bye, Tia, Nana. I'll see you both later."

My aunt kept right on chattering, but I heard Nana answer me. Another echo or memory or whatever these were.

Be good,
she told me.
And Alex, be careful.

Actually, I wouldn't be in any physical danger right away. Technically, I was on administrative leave after the previous day's shooting. Superintendent Davies kept it down to two days, which I appreciated, but even that was time I couldn't afford. I needed to talk with Tony Nicholson and Mara Kelly. Now. So I asked Sampson to set up some interviews under his name. Then I would just go along for the ride, be another set of ears and eyes. page 57

Nicholson and Ms. Kelly were being held on the first and second floors, respectively. We had put them in separate interview rooms and then had to shuttle between the two by elevator. At first, neither of them was willing to say anything except that they'd been the victims of kidnap and assault. I let that go on for a while, several hours, and even subtly let Mara Kelly know that her boyfriend was holding firm. I wanted to build up her trust in Nicholson before I tried to tear it down to nothing. Next time into the room, I laid a photocopied page on the table in front of her.

"What's this?" she asked.

"See for yourself."

She leaned in, tucking in a loose strand of hair with a white-tipped fingernail. Even here in an interrogation room, Kelly had the kind of gentility that struck me as more practiced than real. She spoke of herself as an accountant, but she'd only finished a year of junior college.

"Plane tickets?" she said. "I don't understand. What are these for?" Sampson hunkered low over the table. He's six nine and more than a little intimidating when he wants to be, which is most of the time when he's on the job.

"Montreal to Zurich, leaving last night. You read the ticket? You see the names?" He tapped a finger on the page. "Anthony and Charlotte Nicholson. Your boyfriend was getting ready to run on you, Mara. He and
his wife
."

She pushed the page away. "Yeah, I've got a computer and a color printer too." I took out my cell phone and offered it. "There's a number for Swiss Air right there. You want to call and confirm the reservation, Mrs. Nicholson?"

When she didn't answer, I decided to give her a few minutes alone to stew. Actually, she was right — we had faked the tickets. By the time we came back, she was ready. I could see she'd been crying, and also that she'd tried to wipe away any sign of tears.

"What do you want to know?" she asked. Then her eyes narrowed. "What do I get for it?" Sampson made eye contact with her and held it. "We'll do everything we can to help you." I nodded. "This is how it works, Mara. Whoever helps us first, we help them." I turned on the tape recorder and set it down. "Who were the men in the car? Let's start there."

"I have no idea," she said. "I never saw them before in my life." I believed her.

"What did they want? What did they say?"

Here she paused. I had the sense she might be ready to bury Nicholson, but it wasn't a corner she would turn all at once. "You know, I warned him something like this could happen."

"Something like what, Mara?" Sampson asked. "Be a little more specific."

"He's been blackmailing clients of the club. It was supposed to be our 'new-life money.' That's what Tony always called it. Some new life, right?" She gestured around the room. "
This
is it?"

"What about names? Dead names, made-up ones, whatever you heard. What do you know about the people he was blackmailing?"

Mara Kelly was warming to this, and as she did, her tone got more bitter and sarcastic. "I know that he always covered his bases. Both sides of the aisle. That way, if anyone talks, everyone loses. And if anything happened to Tony, I was supposed to blow the whole thing wide open." She sat back and crossed her slender arms. "That was the idea, anyway. That was the threat he made to the dumbasses he was blackmailing for getting a little nookie."

"And everyone paid up?" Sampson asked her.

Her eyes traveled around the room again like she couldn't believe she was here, that it had all come to this.

"Well, if that was true, we wouldn't be having this conversation now, would we?" page 58

"Why do you think they came after her too?" he kept asking us. "Don't be fooled by the pretty face. That bitch isn't nearly as stupid as she appears."

I guess you could say those two were no longer an item. Now things might get interesting. Nicholson had been sitting on the same rickety folding chair for hours, with his injured leg stuck out to the side in an immobilizer. From the twisted look on his face, he was coming due for a pain pill.

"Okay," I said. "That's a start, Tony. Now let's talk about the real reason we're here." I took out a file and started laying photos on the table. "Timothy O'Neill, Katherine Tennancour, Renata Cruz, Caroline Cross."

There was a moment of genuine surprise on his face — but just a moment. Nicholson was cool under fire.

"What about them?"

"They all worked for you."

"It's possible," he said. "A lot of people work for me."

"It wasn't a question." I pointed at Caroline's picture. "She was found mutilated beyond recognition. Did you catch that on camera too, Nicholson?"

"I seriously don't know what you're talking about. I have no idea what you're getting at. Try making sense when you bother to open your mouth."

"How did she die?"

Something seemed to click suddenly, like a spark in Nicholson's eyes. He looked down at the picture and then back up at me.

"You said Caroline Cross? That's your name, isn't it?" When I didn't answer, his mouth spread into a grin.

"Excuse me, Detective, but I think maybe you're in over your head."

"I got up very fast. If the table hadn't been bolted to the floor, I might have pinned Nicholson to the far wall with it.

But Sampson got to him first. He shot around the table and pulled the chair right out from under him. Nicholson flopped onto the floor like a caught fish.

He started to scream. "My leg! My goddamn leg! You bastards! I'll sue you both!" Sampson didn't seem to hear. "You know Virginia's a death penalty state, right?"

"What is this, Abu fucking Ghraib? Get the hell away from me!" Nicholson gritted his teeth and pounded the floor. "I didn't kill anyone!"

"But you know who did," I shouted back.

"If I had anything to trade, don't you think I'd use it? Help me up, you stupid assholes! Help me up, here. Hey!

Hey!
"

We walked out instead. And while we were at it, we took the chairs with us.