Not Even Past (18 page)

“Here’s the thing,” Donne said. “This place never flooded. There’s no visible water damage.”

All four legs of Luca’s chair clanked back on to the tile. “Interesting, huh?”

The puzzle pieces were coming into focus just a little more. Donne’s brain tickled, as if he was on to something.

“What are they going to do with her when they find her?” Donne exhaled. He hated saying her name. “Jeanne.”

Luca said, “Maybe we’re not looking for her.”

“I doubt it.”

Luca shrugged. Then he leaned over and poked at Donne’s shoulder. Fire ran down Donne’s arm.

“You’re going to have scars.”

Everything was obtuse. Donne felt like he knew what was going on, but couldn’t grab it with his fingers. Jeanne. Bill Martin. Senator Stern. For not the first time, Donne felt a rock settling in his stomach. If only he hadn’t drank and snorted so much. If only he’d paid more attention. Being a twenty-five-year-old narc cop was too much for him to handle. It was like being a rock star, and he didn’t know how to manage it.

Even when he thought he was doing the right thing. The day he walked into his boss’s office with names and a pile of evidence of what they’d been doing. He still never got it exactly right. He’d kept Bill’s name out of it. They were partners, and you don’t do that to your partner. Five other guilty men went to jail, but Martin and Donne stayed free.

And for the longest time, he’d thought Jeanne’s death was karmic payback. But now she was alive and he didn’t know what to think. He was thirty-four years old. He should have had a real job with benefits. Instead, he was battling back from another gunshot wound.

Talking to another thug who wouldn’t give him answers.

Donne took a deep breath. “Why are you keeping me here?”

Luca shook his head. “Your color’s coming back, so that’s good.”

This wasn’t what he wanted for himself anymore. He needed to get back to Kate. Start over. Fix things.

He had to find Jeanne, end whatever was going on here, and get back to his life.

The longer he stayed here, the longer he rotted. The closer Senator Stern was to screwing everything up.

“I’m going to try and sleep some more,” Donne said.

“Best news of the night.”

Donne lay back and closed his eyes. He didn’t see Jeanne this time. He heard Luca’s footsteps, and timed how long it took for them to disappear.

G
OOGLE BROUGHT
people to interesting places.

Kate’s luck was no different. She’d been searching Luca’s name, clicking through newspaper articles, blogs, and photos looking for more information on him. For an hour she had no luck. Beyond the blog she found—one that was all too brief with information—she couldn’t find anything on Luca Carmine.

Until she got to the eighth Google page. A short news article link from a local Bergen County paper was there, and Kate almost missed it. The headline and summary didn’t mention Luca’s name. Instead it was about a woman named Marie Rapaldi. Kate clicked the article because the headline mentioned her original hometown, Bogota, New Jersey. It read “Marie Rapaldi Runs the Bogota 5K for Her Mother.”

With the article was a picture of Marie with Luca, and a caption: “Marie, seen here with her boyfriend, Luca Carmine, ran the Bogota 5K in honor of her ailing mother.” Kate didn’t read the rest of the article, instead backing up to the Google page. She typed Marie’s name into Google, along with Bogota. The third link was a Yellow Pages link with her address.

Clearly, Marie wasn’t a private person.

Kate was in the car five minutes later.

W
HENEVER HER
father was prepping a trial, Kate took the first step in collecting witnesses. She hit the road, tracked people down, and talked to them, gathering evidence. She’d gone in the most dangerous parts of Paterson, Jersey City, and even New Brunswick to track down people who the police had investigated in crimes. Nerves rarely got to her, and in fact, part of her enjoyed it. It was why she was able to approach Jackson cold in the Olde Towne Tavern what felt like ages ago.

But now, as she buzzed the intercom of the brick apartment building in Bogota, electricity buzzed through her stomach. Her breath was short and she kept blinking.

The intercom buzzed back. “Yeah?”

“Hi, Marie Rapaldi? My name is Kate Ellison, I’m a paralegal with—”

“311.”

The intercom buzzed again, and this time the front door lock clicked open. Kate pulled the door, walked into the musty hallway, and located the staircase. When she got to the third floor, she found 311, the door open a crack. She approached it and knocked. The door creaked.

“Come in.”

Kate entered the apartment. It smelled like a Yankee Candle Shop. The front room was painted bright pink and had a pink shag throw rug on the floor. There was a brown couch next to it. A woman in an orange tracksuit sat on it, filing her nails. She glanced up at Kate, showing off a load of eye makeup and purple lipstick, then back at her nails.

“Can I help you?” The Jersey accent was thick with this one.

“Like I said, I’m a paralegal with—”

“Yeah, yeah. This about my brother?” The
er
sound came out like an
uh.

Kate stood in the middle of the living room. To her right, a cat rubbed its back against the edge of a door jamb.

“Actually, I’m here about your boyfriend.”

The nail filing stopped, but Marie didn’t look up. “Luca?”

Kate said, “Can you tell me about him?”

“What’s this about?”

“What was his connection to Tony Verderese?”

Now Marie looked up. Kate thought she’d fit right in on the boardwalk, chomping gum and trying to win a bootleg iPod when the wheel spun.

“They were cousins. Why?”

Kate took a deep breath. “His name came up in a document I was going through, and—”

“Bull. That ain’t Luca. That’s not who Luca is.” Marie hopped off the couch. She was nearly a foot shorter than Kate.

Kate spread her hands. “I’m just telling you that I have questions.”

“About what? What are you asking about Luca? He’s a good man.” Marie was inches from Kate. Her voice could have been heard from Leonia.

“Ma’am, calm down. This is all very routine.”

“Routine? You know he’s got a deal with Senator Stern?”

I did not know that.

“He’s a good man, and when all is said and done, we are going to get married.” Marie shrugged. “Maybe they’ll give us a TV show.”

“What does he do for the senator?”

“None of your fucking business. Come here, Percy.” The cat sprinted from the door and leapt into Marie’s arms. Marie caught it like a football, then stroked its neck.

“Please.”

Marie shook her head. “I don’t have to talk to you. It doesn’t matter anyway. A few weeks from now, Luca will be golden. On his own again. You’ll know who we are.”

“So why don’t you tell me now?”

“Get out!” Marie pointed toward the door and swore in Italian.

Kate thought about pressing the issue some more, but didn’t want to leave too much of an impression. She put her business card on the table and left.

E
ACH TIME
he called in sick, Bill Martin boss’s voice got grumpier and grumpier. Martin wasn’t happy about it either. He missed harassing students who didn’t pay a meter. Pulling over a businessman trying to get back to work after a late lunch.

Now, though, it felt like he was treading water.

The worst part was he was no closer to finding Jeanne. Despite the fact he was convinced she hadn’t gone far, there was no trail to track. She came back to New Jersey, showed her face to her captors, for a reason.

Two state troopers found the Bakers’ car in a strip mall parking lot out west, off Route 78 somewhere. Martin wondered if she’d gone into Pennsylvania and found a motel there.

Martin decided it was time to be proactive. He was going to visit the one name he had, Senator Henry Stern. The office was in Manchester Township, New Jersey. The town was about an hour south of New Brunswick. Bill Martin never had a reason to go there. Today, he wished he still hadn’t.

It was the definition of small-town. The senator’s office was on the second floor above a bakery and a doctor’s office. On the street, four or five people stood with various signs protesting Stern’s school policy and the merger.
DON’T CLOSE OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. UNJ IS A PUBLIC RESOURCE
. They grunted at Martin as he passed, as if he was the enemy. He smiled in return.

Martin had to get buzzed into the office like he was visiting someone’s apartment. When he announced himself, there was a long pause before the door buzzed. He climbed a rickety set of stairs to the second floor. The door at the top of the stairs had Stern’s name etched in it. Martin wondered how long it would take to scratch that off if he ever got voted out of office.

A receptionist sat behind the desk. Her lipstick was smeared and her hair was a bit out of sorts. She had tried to pull it back into a ponytail, but some of the strands were free from the band. Martin waited for a welcoming smile that never came.

“May I help you?” she asked. Her nose was suddenly buried in a stack of papers.

“I’d like to speak to Senator Stern, please.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

Martin presented his badge.

“You’re well out of your jurisdiction, officer.”

“Detective, and I still need to talk to him.”

“What’s this in regard to?”

Martin had mulled this question over as he’d driven this morning. No lie seemed like it was going to work. The best he came up with had to do with the merger.

“I want to know how New Brunswick and Rutgers are going to benefit from this merger.”

“I believe I can answer that,” the receptionist said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Rutgers.”

Martin sighed. He didn’t want to do it this way. “Go back there and tell him I know Jeanne Baker.”

“Detective, he’s very busy. And he doesn’t take unannounced visitors.”

“Just tell him.”

She rolled her eyes and reached for her intercom. Then stopped. Instead, she stood up, smoothed her skirt, and walked through the door behind her desk. Martin could hear muffled voices going back and forth. The deeper one spoke very quickly. Her voice came in short, clipped sentences.

The receptionist came back out and pulled the door closed. Her smile was tighter than the band holding her hair back.

“He’s on the phone. He’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

“Great,” Martin said. He would wait this out.

He sat in a plastic chair, like the ones kids sat in at grammar school. Taking out his phone, he texted Leonard Baker, asking if he’d heard from Jeanne yet. It was a daily ritual now. The first two days he’d done it, Leonard responded with “I wouldn’t tell you that.” Now he didn’t even respond at all. But it made Martin feel like he was doing something, so he kept it up.

Fifteen minutes passed. Martin said, “Long phone call.”

The receptionist didn’t look up. Said, “Politics. Important work.”

“That your stock answer?”

She didn’t respond. It’d been happening to Martin so much lately, he thought he should be getting used to it. The hair on the back of his neck still stood up.

He got through level 147 of Candy Crush on his phone. One of the young cops busted his balls about that game every day. “You can’t figure out your email, but you can play Candy Crush.”

“Go be an Angry Bird somewhere else,” was Martin’s reply.

The response was met with mostly silence. Someone used an app to play a cricket sound on their phone. He couldn’t banter with the young kids anymore. Didn’t mean he was going to stop trying.

His phone buzzed. It was a text. He checked the ID, it wasn’t Leonard Baker. It was his boss.

I need to see you in my office this afternoon
. Then a second text.
I don’t care if you have Ebola. Get here.

His cheeks burned red, and he gripped the phone tight. The shaking returned hard. And he thought he was over that nonsense.

The receptionist’s phone rang. She picked it up and said no, then paused. Then she said yes. The smile wasn’t as tight now.