Innocent Monster (20 page)

“It will do something, but I’m not sure it will help.”

“What do you mean?”

“It will create a lot of activity. Reward money always does. The cops’ll get a million calls with tons of leads, but...” I shrugged my shoulders. “When your Uncle Patrick was missing, we had a reward hotline for him that was active for twenty years. Your mom forgot to shut it down even after we found out what had happened to him all those years ago. The hotline was still getting fresh calls on the day your mom finally closed it down and that was a month after the whole story had appeared in the papers and on TV. Not one of those leads was worth a damn thing.”

She bowed her head. “I see.”

“On the other hand, these things do sometimes pay off. That’s why they do them. At this point, kiddo, the cops need material to work with because they’ve exhausted everything else.”

“What about the stuff you’re working on?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Yeah.”

The waiter came over and delivered our coffees and pies. We each grabbed our forks, but it seemed neither one of us had much of an appetite.

“I can’t do this anymore, Sarah. I found a baby dead in its crib today. His mother was a meth addict and hadn’t fed him for days. It was more important that she feed her habit than her own kid. I didn’t sign on for this. Last night I was prepared to beat information out of a total schizophrenic. He was as lost as Sashi in his way. This is not who I am. The only reason I agreed to do this in the first place was because I wanted you back in my life again. I still want that more than anything, but not at this price.”

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

I reached across the table and stroked her face. “I can’t apologize anymore about what happened to your mom. I can’t take any of it back, kiddo, and I can’t make up for it either. I’ve tried. You’re going to have to forgive me because you forgive me, but I can’t earn it. Do you understand?”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

“By the way, the detective in charge of Sashi’s case has promised me to keep your name out of things. I tried to give you deniability, but he saw through it. Anyway, you’re safe. I gotta go now.” I stood.

“Wait, Dad.” She took my hand. “I’ll walk out with you.”

I looked behind us at the coffee and untouched pies. I smiled, but I wasn’t sure why.

Detective McKenna met me at a bar in Elmont so I wouldn’t have to schlep all the way out to him. Besides, I think he wanted a break after the pressure of the press conference and the calls that had already started pouring in. I had the list Nathan Martyr had supplied me with, the info Doyle and Devo had gotten for me, and a little write-up on the visits I’d made to Tierney, Jeff Fisher, Delia Parker, and the two others. He was sitting at the bar when I came in, staring past his drink into the abyss. He knew today was his last chance to get anywhere with the case and I imagined he was thinking again about whether going so public about the ransom demand had been the right thing to do.

“It wasn’t your decision,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “so stop worrying about it for a few hours. If you fucked up, you’ll have all the time in the world to regret it.”

“Thanks, Prager. You’re a cheery motherfucker.”

I flagged down the barman and ordered a Dewars rocks. “If you think you had a bad day, McKenna, believe me, mine was worse.”

“What happened to you?”

“I’ll tell you about it some other time. Here.” I put the folder on the bar and slid it over to him as the bartender put my drink down. “Cheers.”

“You trying to be funny?”

“Ironic,” I said. “I’m in no kind of shape to do funny today. Anyway, that folder’s got some information on possible suspects. I talked to a few of them. I don’t like any of them for it, but it couldn’t hurt to double check.”

McKenna then asked the one question I dreaded him asking. “How long you have you had these names?”

“A couple of days. Trust me, you wouldn’t have approved of what I did to get them and you would’ve had a tough time legally obtaining some of the info in there. Go ahead, take it. I hope you have better luck with it than I did.”

His face was undecided about what expression to wear. I could almost hear him working out his reaction. Bottom line was, I’d broken the deal we made at the start. I’d held stuff back. I lied to him. On the flip side, I’d done some of his legwork for him and gotten some information he probably would have only been able to gather forensically. And he knew the way of the world: PIs lied. It was never a matter of if, but of when and how much.

“Okay.” He opted for neutrality and took the file. He flipped through some of the pages. “I’ll have this stuff checked out.”

We sat there silently sipping our drinks, him slipping back into the land of What-might-be and me into the land of What-was.

The next morning I slept in. I’d removed myself from the case, but I had no intention of telling my brother about it and running back to my office at Bordeaux In Brooklyn. I figured I had another week or two to avoid the rest of my working life, until either Sashi was found or the story and the trail went cold again. I did, however, owe it to Candy and Max, despite their lies, to tell them in person. I also wanted to thank Jimmy Palumbo and give him some bonus cash for doing quality work. He was a good guy and good company and I guess I kind of felt sorry for him. I knew firsthand what divorce could do to people, how it could blow up their lives in an instant. A lawyer once told me that the saddest reading in the world was a divorced person’s credit report.

“It’s like reading a dying man’s EKG, Moe. The heart’s beating fine and then... boom! You’ll look at the credit report and everything is perfect for thirty years: no late payments, no judgments, no liens, no repos, not a single blemish. Then somebody cheats or is bored with their spouse or for whatever reason someone wants to end the marriage. But there’s more to a marriage than the kids and the pets. There are joint accounts, joint credit cards, car payments, loan payments, the mortgage. Cards get maxed out, loans don’t get paid and for what, to punish the other party? The finances go to shit and their lives follow in short order.”

Those words rang in my head as I turned onto the Bluntstones’ street in Sea Cliff and their Victorian loomed up before me. I wondered what would become of Max and Candy when this all came to a conclusion. If Sashi never came home, would there be anything left to hold them together or would the shared loss bind them to each other in a way that love never could? As appealing and romantic as the latter notion might be, my experience taught me that the former was much more likely. That with Sashi gone, their nuclear bonds broken, Max and Candy would go spinning off into the void like random particles.

One thing was for sure, the circus was back in town. The press conference, as expected, had relit the fire and the block was a Noah’s Ark of news vans, inconvenienced neighbors, cop cars, the curious, and, worst of all, the tragedy pimps. There were just some people addicted to the scent and spectacle of tragedy. Drawn like swarming flies to a fresh corpse, it was easy to spot their faces in the crowd. They were the lean and hungry onlookers, the ones waiting to feed off the bad news. They were the ones with the vacant lives whose condolences were more for their own empty selves than the families of the lost. They were the eager wreath-layers.

A uniform stopped me when I approached the house. I explained who I was; then he explained, “They’re not here.”

“Is Detective McKenna around?”

“He’s the one that took them outta here. Look at this place. It’s a freakin’ circus.”

“It is that,” I said, smiling at his confirmation, and retreated to my car.

The museum was abuzz with its usual emptiness when I showed up in Cold Spring Harbor about twenty minutes after leaving Sea Cliff. Jimmy Palumbo still looked a little worse for wear from the other night. I imagine a dip in freezing water in December is probably not the best thing for your health, especially if you’re going to stay in your wet clothes for another two hours. Still, he seemed glad to see me and even more glad when I slipped him the envelope with his bonus cash. He didn’t make a show of pretending to not want or need it. Instead, he thanked me and tucked the envelope away in the inside pocket of his blazer.

“Listen,” I said, “just so you know, I had to turn over the shit we got from Martyr to the detective in charge of the case.”

Jimmy was suddenly much less happy to see me. “Fuck!” summed up his feelings nicely, but his sick expression was much more eloquent.

“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t mention you at all. As far as he knows, I did all of this on my own. You’re fine.”

“Great. Thanks. I didn’t mind helping you, but you gotta leave my name out of all this. Because all I would need is for my ex to find out I was earning cash off the books. Her lawyer’s already straining my nuts for extra pennies. And if I got in any legal trouble, she could keep the kids away from me forever.”

“Believe me, I understand. I got you covered.”

He looked relieved. “I appreciate it.”

“Rusk in?”

“Always.”

“Can you phone him and see if he’s got a few minutes for me?”

“Go ahead downstairs, I’ll make sure he got time for you.”

Wallace Rusk was waiting for me at the elevator door as he had on my first visit. He was also dressed in identical clothing. The expression he was wearing was rather more perturbed than on my first visit, though he did offer me his hand in greeting.

“I suppose I have you to thank for that visit from the local constabulary,” he said, gesturing towards his office door.

Now I understood the look on his face. McKenna had been to see him and had no doubt been a little less polite about it than me. As evidenced by Rusk’s demeanor and Jimmy’s before him, people have a distinct distaste for dealing with the police. I forget that sometimes, although given my own experiences with the police, I shouldn’t.

“I’m sorry about that. I mentioned your name in passing and Detective McKenna seized on it.”

“I suppose I can’t hold that against you,” he said, motioning to a chair opposite his desk. “Would you like a drink, Mr. Prager?”

“Yeah, actually I would. Thank you.”

“Sherry, cognac, or scotch? I’m having a sherry myself.”

“Sherry would be nice. Thank you.”

He left the room, but returned with two small, delicate crystal glasses. He offered one to me. I stood when I took it. We raised glasses. Sherry isn’t a glass-clinking and
slánte
kind of drink. Rusk smiled as he sipped.

“Very fine sherry,” I said.

“A discerning palate.”

“I own several wine stores with my older brother. He’s the real expert, but I know the fine taste of things.” As I said the words, Mary Lambert’s flavor filled up my senses.

“You are a man full of surprises, aren’t you, Mr. Prager?”

“Fewer than you’d think.”

We sipped some more.

“When I was at school, one of my professors taught our class a little rhyme about sherry. I think it goes, ‘I must have one glass of sherry at eleven/’Tis something that must be done/For if I don’t have one glass at eleven/I will have eleven at one.’ I shall never forget that.” He took his place at his desk, a wistful look in his eyes. “It is strange, is it not, what a man remembers?”

“It’s funny you should mention that. I wanted to ask you about a rather strange man.”

“So you availed yourself of Declan Carney’s services.”

“I did.”

“And you’re curious?”

“I am, but who wouldn’t be? Between the fake name and outfit, the hair and the rest, he suggests a thousand questions.”

“Of course, what I know of his history I don’t know directly from the man himself. I don’t even know his given name. I imagine some of what has been related to me is more myth and exaggeration than fact, possibly most of it, but it makes a fascinating story. Though I somehow doubt he feels that way about it.”

“About what?”

“The story goes that he finished near the top of his class at West Point and he was being groomed for some important position within the intelligence community. But when Iraq invaded Kuwait, he was yanked out of whatever training program or graduate school he was in and pressed into combat. Then during Desert Storm, after there was nothing left for the air forces to bomb, his unit was ordered to oversee what I believe is euphemistically referred to as mop-up duty. Only in Desert Storm, this form of mop-up duty entailed bulldozing millions of tons of sand over panicked Iraqi troops and burying them alive in what would become their tomb.”