Father's Day (18 page)

They had found Jack Weldon on the phone, reclining in a padded swivel chair, his elbow on the desk. There wasn’t a space not covered with papers, open folders, and computer printouts. Jack watched them enter the office. There was recognition in his eyes but the rhythm of his conversation didn’t vary. His bald head was blotchy with wisps of gray hair on the sides and back. He was clean-shaven with a thick red nose and matching neck above a white collared shirt. He spoke softly into the phone with a disarming quality that lured people in and caught them off
guard. He had the quiet determination and slow steady efficiency of a rising tide.

Mitch reached across the desk and they shook hands.

“How’s business, Jack.”

“The same. The same assholes, same bullshit. Sit down. Where’d you dig up this relic?”

Lou reached his hand out and Jack Weldon took it in his warm fleshy paw.

“More like a fossil, Jack.”

“You’re not alone, Lou.”

“I’d like to believe that, Jack, but I can’t. At least you guys have made a little money, kept your families intact. I can’t say the same thing.”

“You won’t find any pity here, my friend. You’re just not knocking on the right doors. You could be sitting at one of these desks as easily as I could. Mitch and me, we could help make it happen. The question is, what do you want?”

“I don’t know.”

They all sipped their coffee. It was hot and Lou blew gently across the top of the cup.

“Mitch tells me you’re looking for Sam Blackwell’s daughter and that Wayne Tinferd is tied up in it.”

“Was.”

“Well, from what I heard, he got what he deserved.”

“I have a feeling that the girl’s disappearance and these murders are related to Sam Blackwell’s death and his involvement with Vince Trafficante. I wondered if you could shed any light on that for me. I know you were pretty heavily involved back then. Gilbert Dodgeson keeps coming up.”

“I don’t know if you knew this, Lou, but I knew Sam Blackwell pretty well. I can’t say we were exactly friends. Maybe we became like friends after a while. I was with Vice at that time,
headed up a unit investigating gambling and underage prostitution. Vincent Trafficante was the subject of our investigation. We ran into a lot of stone walls. He isn’t an easy man to bring down. When we got a line on Sam Blackwell, we thought maybe we had him. We didn’t like it, busting a cop and using him as an in for mant, but we had no choice. Sam was getting ready to testify against Vince in front of a grand jury.”

“Do you think he killed himself?”

“I admit there was a change in him as it got closer. He really hated Vince. He knew his wife was fooling around with him and I think he started to realize what a sucker he’d been played for. It was starting to hit home for him. We had our suspicions that Sam’s death wasn’t a suicide, but when he died, the investigation died, and we were ordered to let it drop. And we did.”

“And Dodgeson was the medical examiner.”

“He took the body, ruled suicide, and it was over.”

“Dodgeson’s running some kind of asylum now? What’s that all about?”

“It’s called Fenwick House. It’s a mountain retreat, hidden away, impossible to find if you didn’t know where to look. It’s a massive stone mansion, built around the turn of the century by Stanley Reddington, an old-money railroad man and notorious bootlegger. Sits on over thirty acres. His parties were legendary.

“Reddington entertained Hollywood starlets, professional ball players, and politicians. There was a rumor going around that one of the Kennedy boys spent a wild weekend there, landed his private plane on the front drive with two high-class call girls in the cockpit. Babe Ruth supposedly kept one of his mistresses there and popped in between hitting home runs. The stories were endless. The run ended when Reddington’s oldest son overdosed and was found floating in the pond.

“Reddington’s second son, Charles Reddington, took it over after his father died. His parties were somewhat less grand. The
mansion became a hangout for derelicts and junkies, grown men looking for a tit to feed off. He sold every stitch of furniture in the place—his mother’s jewels, his father’s art collection. The house was allowed to decay until it was nothing but a hollow shell.

“The mansion passed through a variety of hands before becoming Fenwick House. A Philadelphia newspaper mogul moved in, with two children, a governess, and no wife. He lost a small fortune in the stock market and hung himself from a third-floor balcony. His twelve-year-old daughter found him.

“The following year, an animal rights group moved in. They were hoping to remain anonymous, printing pamphlets and mailing letters in bulk. They took in all kinds of strays, dogs, cats, rabbits, birds. The smell was horrendous. The complaints started and then the death threats and they were gone.

“Eventually, a shadowy group of businessmen, under the guise of the DROP Corporation, bought the place and opened a rehabilitation center. They installed a board of handpicked officers, hired a staff of nurses and counselors, of dubious background, and were taking patients within the month. They appointed a medical director by the name of Dr. Gilbert Dodgeson.

“He had the credentials and the connections. Business was booming, catering to the rich and famous, big-time crooks that needed somewhere to lay low, somewhere they could send their fucked-up kids so they didn’t end up in jail. Nobody really knew who was behind those walls and nobody really cared. It was all very confidential, very hush-hush.

“The DEA almost pinned a rap on Dodgeson a couple of years ago. He had a brother, a pharmacist that ran a little medicine shop about fifteen miles away. It turned out he was filling more prescriptions in a month than there were people in the town. Patients discharged from Fenwick House made it their first stop. Orders were also phoned in, pickup and delivery to Fenwick House made by Mr. Wayne Tinferd. If the neighbors
complained to the police, it didn’t do any good. Everybody’s favorite pharmacist was raking in the dough and the fix was in.”

“So, what happened?”

“The same thing that always happens, Lou. Nothing.”

“I guess I’ll be paying a visit to Dr. Dodgeson.”

“You want some company? Mitch will drive you crazy.”

“No, I’ll go it alone. I have a party to go to this evening. I’ll probably start out early tomorrow. What’s it, about an hour drive?”

“A little less. Watch you don’t choke on all that fresh air.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

“Don’t thank me until you get my bill. Whose party?”

“Vincent Trafficante. He’s having a dinner party and he wants me there.”

“Well, now I really do feel sorry for you.”

Mitch and Lou rode the elevator in silence and stepped out onto the deck of the parking garage. Mitch bummed a smoke and they both lit up. Mitch flashed his badge again at the same guy on their way out. Each had an arm out the window, tapping cigarette ash onto the pavement, most of it mixing with the dust on the dull blue finish of the car. It was sunny and cold. They both shielded their eyes from the glare with dark sunglasses. At the first traffic light, Mitch flung the cigarette out the window.

“You could start a fire like that.”

“Do I look like a fucking fireman?”

“This is getting ugly. Isn’t it, Mitch?”

“Any regrets?”

“Plenty.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Yes, I do. I made a promise to Sam. I promised that I’d watch out for his kid if something happened to him, and it was as though he knew something would. I made a lot of promises,
to my own daughter, to myself, and I’ve managed to break every one.”

“But she ain’t Sam’s kid. You know that. At least, you know it now. Vince is the father and there’s nothing you can do about that, nothing she can do about it, either. She’s an angry kid, Lou. You’d be angry too if it turned out your whole life was a lie.”

“And what about Sam? Are we supposed to just let it stand? A suicide? Accept it and move on when we all know he was murdered. He might have been the only good thing in her life. Is she supposed to let that go, too?”

“She’s going to have to.”

“If she’s in Fenwick House, Mitch, I’m going after her.”

“What if you get in there and she doesn’t want your help. Tells you to fuck off, mind your own business. She can, you know. That kid has plans of her own, Lou, and I don’t know if any of us can help her.”

“You’re probably right. But I won’t use that as an excuse, not this time.”

“And what about Maggie? You have your own kid to worry about.”

“She’s going to have to stay with her mother until this thing blows over.”

“That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say all day.”

Lou picked up his
car and drove straight to Heshy’s. The lunch crowd was just leaving and Maggie was busy clearing tables, piling the dirty dishes in the sink and wiping down the counter. Her forehead was shiny with sweat. Lou watched her stuff a couple of dollar bills into her back pocket. Joey was still there in his usual spot with a stack of newspapers in front of him and a cigarette going in a plastic ashtray. He lifted them up and smiled as Maggie came by with a damp rag.

“I’m taking her off your hands, Hesh.”

“My quitting time is three o’clock. I can’t leave.”

“You’re getting out early.”

“Man, Dad, relax. What are you so uptight about?”

“You’re going to have to go home, back with your mother, just for a little while, a few days at most. It’s not safe here anymore.”

“If you say so. I’m not going to argue with you when you’re like this.”

“Thank you. And thank you, Hesh. You can have her back next week if you still want her.”

“Any time, Lou. She’s a pleasure.”

“Thanks, Hesh. I’m glad somebody thinks I am.”

Maggie untied the apron and threw it at her father. It hit him in the face before he could get his hands up to catch it. She marched into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Lou leaned over the counter and picked up the quarter tip under a cup of cold coffee. He looked over at Joey.

“Heads or tails?”

Lou tossed the coin over his head. Joey called it in the air. “Heads.”

Lou caught it in his palm and slapped it onto the counter. “Your luck is holding out, Joey.”

A few minutes later Maggie came out with a new face on. Lou whistled at her, hoping to get a smile. She rolled her eyes, shook her head, grabbed her coat from a row of hooks on the back wall, and was out the door ahead of him.

Lou twirled the set of keys around his index finger like a lifeguard with a whistle. Maggie breathed a long sigh as she waited for him to unlock the car. She pulled a pair of dark sunglasses from her purse and slipped them on. It was a quiet ride. They were both thinking the same thing. What to tell her mom.

He watched the road and she looked out the passenger window. The afternoon sky was blue, a few high wispy clouds hanging around. The air was still cold. Lou read the body language, the nonverbal cues his daughter exhibited like a flashing billboard. He’d seen it before, learned to read it but could never speak its language, a language of anger, blame, and accusation. He wondered why twenty years of police work in the city of brotherly love hadn’t been enough time for him to polish his armor. It was the personal attacks from the people closest to him that he’d always been most sensitive to, that hurt him the most.
He’d never really grown accustomed to the snide remarks from his wife, the sarcasm from his daughter. Somewhere along the way he should have grown a thicker skin—somehow to have learned to communicate with his daughter and with his wife, with all the women in his life.

His wife had never seemed to suffer from such doubts. She’d always seemed to fit right in, comfortable with the pace of the city, a climber, able to play the political game. She’d find her way into circles that he couldn’t seem to penetrate. She did it on his behalf, she’d say, and then threaten to leave him, divorce him while she was still young enough to attract someone else, someone with aspirations, someone with the ambition to be more than a patrolman for the rest of his life. She’d been looking and he knew it and he’d felt humiliated because of it.

The pressure of the job and his problems at home had slowly deprived him of his will, choked the vitality out of him. He’d reacted with apathy, and then frustration, driven toward the final act, the one that had resulted in his dismissal from the force. While Lou tried to gain some new perspective, see his dismissal as a blessing in disguise, she looked at it as the final stamp of failure on a man destined to fail, one more lame excuse. She had furthered her own education, furthered her career, made connections. While his thoughts were on reinventing himself, she spoke of winners and losers. In the end, the joke was on him.

He cut over Girard Avenue and swung on to the Schuylkill Expressway going south. He drove the speed limit, not over or under. He became aware of his own stiff, controlled motions behind the wheel—cautious, trying to get everything right. He was becoming like his father, he thought. Lou remembered watching him from the back seat, doing thirty-five in a forty mile an hour zone, in front of impatient house wives on the horn. He’d tap his brakes periodically, for no apparent reason. He
could have gone around a corner and his son could have tumbled out and he wouldn’t have noticed; his eyes were glued to the road. Lou wondered how his father could have been cautious to a fault and still a good cop. And why it hadn’t saved his life.

Maggie put on the radio and scanned the channels. Lou drummed his fingers on the armrest. His left leg swayed, but not in rhythm to anything coming from the radio. He was in no mood for music. The only choice seemed to be country or hard rock. A strange combination of southern drawl and primal scream mingled through the speakers as she turned the dial. Lou reached out and turned the radio off. The knob came off in his hand. He tried to replace it but the movement of the car made it impossible. He pulled open the ashtray and dropped in the black plastic button. The ashtray was filled with cigarette butts, in a bed of gray ash.