Gingerbread Man (2 page)

"That's bullshit"

"Is it?" Jerry shoved a stack of file folders
aside, and perched on the edge of Vince's desk. He wore a white
shirt that could've been whiter, and a striped tie that he'd tugged
loose. His belly hung two inches over his shiny black belt, and he
had less hair on his head every day. "So, what else are you working
on, Vince?"

Vince shook his head, ignoring his
partner.

"You're not working on anything else, are
you? Nothing but this."

"Get off my back, Jerry."

"I heard you just now."

That brought Vince's gaze up. Jerry looked
worried— a little scared, even. "Why the hell would you make a
promise like that? You know better."

"It helped. The woman is barely standing
these days."

"Yeah? And what do you suppose it's gonna do
to you if you can't keep it?"

Vince's fist clenched. "We'll never know,
because that's not gonna happen."

"Vince—"

"I'm gonna find those kids, Jare."

Jerry sighed, studying his friend's face for
a long moment. But when he spoke again, his tone was closer to
normal than it had been before. "Still following up on registered
sex offenders?"

"Only the pedophiles. And, hell, I've only
made it through the first five hundred or so. You know how many
convicted perverts we got living like normal people in this
city?"

"No, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me."

Vince just looked at him. "I meant what I
said. I'm gonna find them."

"Because you're Detective Vincent frigging
O'Mally. Decorated supercop who always gets his man. You know, my
friend, this case might be easier on you if you'd ever once failed
at anything in your entire life."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking
about."

"I know this. You're not infallible, Vince.
And if this one goes bad, it's not gonna be because you fucked
up."

"It's
not
going to go bad," Vince
said, meeting his partner's eyes. "And I
don't
fuck up."

The telephone on his desk rang. Jerry grabbed
it up before Vince could, probably just to piss him off a little
and distract him from the case.

"Detective Donovan," Jerry intoned
automatically. Then he listened, and his gaze shot to Vince's, and
his face went pale. "Shit. Okay, yeah. We're on it."

Jerry put the phone down. "Maybe you'll want
to sit this one out, buddy."

Vince got to his feet, grabbed his coat, and
tried to fight the dread building in his belly.

***

“THERE’S NOT GOING to be anything in here."
Vince stood just outside the door of a dilapidated house on
Syracuse's east side and said words he didn't really believe. Jerry
was on the other side of the door. Their guns were raised, their
backs to the outer wall. The light wasn't good. Overcast skies
tinted everything in sepia. A stiff autumn wind rode herd on
dried-out leaves, so they crackled over the sidewalk like rattling
bones. "We checked this place out already."

"The caller said there was a bad smell,"
Jerry said, keeping his voice low. "I don't smell anything, do you
Vince?"

Vince didn't really sniff the air. He
couldn't make himself do it. He said, "No, I don't smell a damned
thing. Probably the same neighbor who reported seeing that beat-up
van near here the day the kids were taken. Probably just likes
calling the cops. Makes her feel important."

"We checked it out that day," Jerry said. "We
didn't miss anything."

Vince looked at his partner. "We didn't miss
anything."

Jerry nodded, and Vince turned and pushed the
front door open, backed away, then entered cautiously. The place
was falling down. Not a piece of glass remained in a single window,
but plenty littered the splintered floors underneath thick layers
of dust and plaster.

There was a closed door on the far side of
the room, its once-white paint peeling off it in great strips.
Boards lay here and there, and the floor creaked under their feet
Vince took another careful step. A floorboard broke and his foot
went right through. He swore under his breath and yanked his foot
free. Then he looked in the hole his foot had made, frowning. A
child's storybook lay under the floor, its cardboard cover warped
and bent, colors faded. It looked as if it had been lying there for
years. Still, Vince carefully picked it up with two gloved fingers
to take a closer look. A thick coat of dust covered the title.
The Gingerbread Man.
Odd place for a children's book. There
were gaps in the floor all over the place. It must have fallen
through one of them, who knew how long ago? Opening the cover
carefully he saw a library card pocket. The words "Dilmun Public
Library, Dilmun, NY" were stamped there, along with a series of
dates. He yanked an evidence bag from his coat pocket—he always
carried a handful of them—and dropped the book into it telling
himself it was probably unnecessary, because this place had nothing
to do with Bobby and Kara Prague. Nothing. He wasn't going to find
a damn thing here.

His instincts were disagreeing vehemently
with his mind on that, but he refused to hear them. Still, he
jotted a note about the book on his notepad.

Stuffing the bagged book and the notepad into
his coat pocket, he looked at the closed door, took a single step
toward it. Then the pungent scent hit him and his entire soul
recoiled.

"Ah, shit," Jerry said, turning his nose into
his collar. "Vince, the smell... it's coming from in there." Jerry
nodded toward that same closed door at the far end of the
place.

Damn, he didn't want to do this. Everything
in Vince was screaming at him not to go over there. Not to open
that door. Just to turn around and leave. He stepped forward even
as his partner reached for the broken door with a trembling
hand.

Vince put his own hand on Jerry's shoulder,
stopping him. "Why don't you check the other rooms, partner?"

Jerry frowned at him.

"It's my case, Jerry."

"It's
our
case."

Vince lowered his hand. "You've got
kids."

"And I've got a partner. We'll go
together."

Finally, Vince nodded. Swallowing hard, Jerry
pushed the door open. The odor sprung from the pitch darkness and
hit them both like a physical blow. Jerry turned his back on it, a
knee-jerk reaction. A second later Vince heard his partner's
staggering footsteps as he headed back through the house and out
the front door, then he heard him retching someplace beyond it.
Hell, it looked like Vince would be doing this alone after all.

Stiffening his spine, Vince pulled the lapel
of his coat up over his nose and mouth, pulled out his flashlight,
and flicked it on.

The beam pierced the darkness, the floating
dust specs, the invisible veil between blessed blindness and hell.
The pale light spilled onto the bodies of Kara and Bobby Prague,
and Vince turned away, but not before the image had burned itself
into his brain. He lurched out of the room, and a second later he
was outside, on his knees beside his partner. He wasn't puking.
Just kneeling there, ice cold, his entire body rigid, eyes wide and
unable to erase what they had seen. Unable to silence the voice in
his mind telling him he had failed. He'd promised to find those
kids—but not like this.
Goddamn,
not like this. He kept
seeing Sara Prague's eyes, the hope he had put in them.

"Vince? Vince, what the hell was it...
?
Jerry wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, getting to his
feet to lean over him. "Was it the Prague kids? Was it them?" When
he didn't answer, Jerry swore and turned to go back inside.

Vince got up, grabbed his partner, jerked him
around. "Don't go in there."

“The hell I won't." Jerry pulled free.

Vince punched him. Just like that, he clocked
his partner in the jaw, knocked him flat on his back. Jerry lay
there, blinking up at him in shocked silence.

"No man with kids has any business seeing
what's in that room," he muttered. Then he stepped over Jerry to
reach into the car for the radio mike, and, keying it, requested a
coroner and a forensics team.

Three days later, Vince and Jerry sat in
Chief Rogers' office. Jerry and the chief seemed to be taking turns
shooting worried looks Vince's way, but he did his best to ignore
them.

The chief didn't waste a lot of time before
coming to the point. "You two are off the Prague case."

Vince surged to his feet "What do mean?
Jesus, chief, we don't even have the autopsy report yet!"

The chief held up both hands and kept
talking. "The FBI has it. They've taken over. They have three other
cases with what they say are striking similarities in Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts, and Jersey. They've got a task force in place to
deal with it, and they don't want any locals stepping on their
toes."

"That's bullshit," Vince snapped. "I've been
working this case for almost a month, dammit. I have to get this
guy."

"You're off the case, O'Mally."

"
I
have to get this guy."

The chief glanced sideways at Jerry, then
focused on Vince again. "Sit down."

Vince sat, but stiffly. He braced himself on
the edge of the chair, his hands balled into fists on his
knees.

"When's the last time you shaved, O'Mally?
Huh?" The chief eyed him, looking more concerned than stern. "How
long since you've eaten a full meal, or had a few hours' sleep?
Have you walked by a mirror lately?"

Vince averted his eyes. "I've been busy."

"You're running on empty. You can't possibly
be thinking clearly. Now, I know that crime scene got to you. It
got to all of us. The forensics team that went in there is
undergoing group counseling, and they admit they're having trouble.
And these guys have seen damn near everything."

"I'm fine," Vince insisted.

"No. I don't think so. Do you think he's
fine, Jerry?"

Jerry shook his head. "No sir, I don't think
he's fine at all."

"Jerry, for crying out—"

"I'm sorry partner, but you've been messed up
since you came out of that room. I don't know what the hell to do
about it. You insisted on talking to Sara Prague yourself—breaking
the news, when I begged you to let someone else do it. When you
came out of her house that day you looked... dead, Vince. You
looked dead. You're drowning in this case, man, and I don't know
how to pull you out."

Vince tipped his head back, rolled his eyes
at the ceiling.

I’m gonna give you a choice, O'Mally," the
chief said slowly. “Take a thirty-day leave, get out of here, get
away from this thing, and see if you can shake it off."

"No way. I'm seeing this thing through to the
end, Feds or no Feds. What's behind door number two, Chief?"

"An hour a day with Dr. Feltzer."

"The shrink from hell?" The chief nodded.
"For how long?" Vince asked.

"Until she says you're passably sane."

"Hell, she didn't think I was passably sane
the day they hired me."

"Your decision. Either way, you're off this
case. I want everything you have on my desk in ten minutes. That
goes for you, too, Jerry."

"So you can turn it all over to the Feds?"
Vince asked, disgusted by the thought.

"Those are my orders. After that, I want you
to go home. Take the rest of the day off, and let me know what you
decide—the leave or the shrink."

"But—"

"I'm done talking," the chief said. "You can
go now."

"But, Chief, I—"

"Go. Now." He lifted an arm, pointed at the
door.

Vince stormed out of the chief's office and
headed for his desk. Jerry was right on his heels, but he ignored
his partner as he pulled file folder after file folder off the
sloping stacks on his desk and dropped them into the little
wastebasket beside it. Papers flew like confetti. He could feel
everyone in the place looking at him as if he'd lost it. He ignored
them all, opened drawers, rummaging through them, gathering up
every scribbled note and every paperclip that had any connection to
the Prague case. Slamming one drawer closed he yanked open another,
and then another, until at last, he opened the drawer with the pile
of framed photos inside.

He stopped, frozen, and stared down at the
freckled faces. His shoulders quaked, but he caught himself, held
himself in a hard, merciless grip.

"Those … probably ought to be sent back to
the mother," Jerry said, his voice hoarse.

"Yeah."

"I'll take care of it for you."

Vince nodded, then reached in and picked up
the most recent photo. He handed it to Jerry. "All but this one,
okay?"

"Vince?"

"I want the Feds to have this one. Tell 'em
to look at it every day. Tell 'em this is what that bastard killed,
not that pile of paperwork. This."

Jerry nodded and took the framed photo. "So
... you gonna take the time off, or the treatment?"

"I don't know yet." He picked up the
wastebasket, handed that to Jerry as well. "Give this to the chief
for me." Reaching for the computer on his desk, he peeled off a
half dozen yellow sticky notes, wadded them up and tossed them into
the trash can as well. Lastly, Vince ejected a flash drive and
dropped it into his shirt pocket.

"What's that, Vince?"

"What's what?"

Jerry scowled. "What did you do? Did you keep
a copy of your files on this case?"

"Shit, pal, when did you ever see me
organized enough to think of something like that?"

"Vince. You gotta let this one go."

Vince met his partner's eyes for one long
moment, then looked away. "I'm going home. I'll see you later."

Jerry sighed as Vince left the office.

Halfway back to his apartment, three miles
from the police station, Vince glanced down and noticed his coat
lying on the passenger seat. It had been warm for this late in the
fall. He hadn't worn the coat since ...