Parker 01 - The Mark (11 page)

“Carl?”

“Amanda, oh, God, thank you.”

“Hey, it’s just a ride, I don’t think I’m worthy of deification just yet.”

Then I noticed just how gorgeous Amanda Davies was. Her brown hair spilled over her beautifully tan shoulders, draping over lovely toned arms and smooth skin. She had on a green tank top and tight blue jeans, and there was a hint of faded sunburn on her neck, and a tiny mole by her right collarbone. Her skin had a brilliant luster to it and there was a slightly mischievous tint in Amanda’s emerald eyes. If I had to be stuck in a car for hours with a complete stranger, I could have had it worse. Much worse.

“Sorry about that, Carl. I didn’t mean to scare you, but I thought it’d be funny to play a joke, you know. Make you think I’d left.” I forced out a laugh, and looked at my savior. Not only was Amanda Davies gorgeous, but she had a pretty sadistic sense of humor.

“You need to stop for anything before we get going?” she asked. “Coffee? Bathroom?”

“No,” I said. To be honest I was starving, but there was no time to waste. “I’m good for now.”

Amanda nodded, gunned the engine and merged into the northbound lane. The car smelled faintly of grease and breath mints. An empty McDonald’s wrapper lay crumpled on the floor, surrounded by a graveyard of Tic Tac containers. She saw me looking at them and smiled.

“What, girl can’t go nuts on a McChicken every now and then? We need to eat tofu and broccoli every meal?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“No, but you were thinking it.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything,” I said defensively. She leered at me, a hurtful look on her face.

“You think I’m bulimic, don’t you?”

My head snapped to attention. “What?”

“You think I chow down on burgers and fries all day then go puke it all up.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I swear.”

“I know your kind,” she sniffed, slamming down the blinker and following the signs toward the Holland Tunnel. “You think you’re hot shit cause you eat protein-enriched sprouts all day then spend eight hours on the elliptical machine. Well, let me tell you something, Carl. Some of us have natural metabolisms. We don’t spend all day reading
Ladies Home Journal
and wishing we were Heidi or Gisele.”

“Who’s Heidi?”

“Oh, forget it,” she said. “This obviously isn’t working out. Maybe I should drop you off somewhere.” My breath caught short. I stammered.

“You can’t…you can’t do that. No, I swear, I didn’t think that at all. I just noticed the wrapper, that’s it. You can eat whatever you want. I don’t care if you have lard for breakfast. In fact I encourage it.” Amanda looked devastated, her lips contorting into an ugly grimace.

“So you’re saying I’m fat.”

“No, Jesus H. Christ, I’m not saying that at all. You probably have the fastest metabolism on earth. If you want to eat McNuggets and candy all day…”

“Carl,” Amanda said. Again, the name took a moment to process.

“Yeah?”

“I’m messing with you.”

An awkward silence enveloped the car as her lips collapsed into a maniacal grin.

“You were screwing with me.”

“Come on, you really think I care what a guy I just met thinks about my dietary habits? No offense, Carlito, but I don’t. I give you credit for keeping your cool, though. I’ve been with other guys who’ve started calling me names and telling me to lay off the milk shakes.”

“So you actually do this often. That’s kind of scary.”

“Saves me money on gas and tolls, can’t blame a girl for wanting a little entertainment to go with it.”

“Well then I’m happy to oblige,” I said. “As long as we get to…St. Louis in one piece, I’ll sing show tunes if it’ll make you happy.”

“If I hear one chorus from ‘Dancing Queen,’ you’re walking to St. Louis.”

We pulled into a line of cars waiting for the outbound Holland Tunnel. Traffic was agonizingly slow, but Amanda steered us into the E-Z pass lane. I lowered my head as we passed through the tollbooth, not wanting to offer an easy glimpse to an attendant who might be perusing the newspaper while bored on the job. Within minutes, we were heading west toward New Jersey.

Sodium lights whizzed by, my life now squeezed into a one-lane road. The speck of light at the end of the tunnel grew as we neared the exit. I felt nauseous. I was out of NewYork, away from my personal ground zero. Hopefully arriving in St. Louis by nightfall. But in the commotion to leave, I’d been so delirious that I didn’t even consider the next step. All I knew is that an opportunity for survival had arisen and I’d taken it.

I didn’t know what to do once we got to St. Louis, didn’t know a soul in the whole state. I had no phone to use, forty dollars in my wallet and a gunshot wound in my leg. Mya was out of the picture, as was Wallace Langston. The police were probably circling them both like vultures. They were gangrenous appendages I had to cut off. Perhaps permanently. My life now existed in a parallel social universe, where I could trust only strangers, forced to alienate everyone who cared.

Guilt flushed through my system as I looked at the girl sitting next to me. Her eyes were stuck to the road, so delicate, innocent. I hadn’t considered the implications of what this could do to her. Amanda Davies was there, and I’d blindly reached for her. And now she was at the mercy of chance. I wanted to apologize, to tell her what she’d gotten into. But if I offered the truth, she wouldn’t be a stranger anymore. As long as my story was Carl’s, as long as I remained a stranger, I was safe.

Amanda took a pair of aviator sunglasses from a pouch above the rearview mirror. As we pulled onto US-1/9 south, the bright sunlight of morning shining golden on the horizon, she turned to me.

“You mind opening the glove compartment? Just pull the tab upwards. It might be stuck, so give a good tug.”

I complied, and half a dozen maps spilled onto my lap. A tape measure. Three old movie tickets. Chewing gum that seemed to have petrified.

“Okay, now what?”

“Hand me that notebook,” she said. “The spiral one in there.”

Behind a mass of red-and-blue illustrated tributaries lay a tiny reporter’s notebook, spiral bound at the top, with white lined pages. I’d seen many like it in various newsrooms, had a similar one in my backpack. Many reporters kept them on hand. Was Amanda a journalist? A writer? The odds were staggering, but who else kept a notebook in their glove compartment?

She took it from me and flipped to a clean page, then bit the cap off the pen while balancing the pad on the steering wheel. Then she began to write.

“Uh, hey,” I said, watching the two-ton vehicles whizzing by in a blur on either side of us. “Isn’t the first driving commandment ‘keep thine eyes on the road?’”

She said, “I do this all the time.”

I nodded, as though I’d seen this kind of motor vehicle behavior a thousand times. My hands, however, firmly gripped the armrest in the event she was lying.

“So how long’s the drive to St. Louis?” I asked.

She stopped scribbling. “Depending on traffic, between twelve and fourteen hours.”

“And you can make that in one sitting?” She looked at me as if I’d asked if her hair color was real.

“I’ve done it a hundred times. We might need a pit stop or two for coffee and bathroom breaks, but we should be there by midnight. You’ll have to let me know ahead of time where I’m dropping you.”

“Will do.”

A moment later, she added, “So I’m guessing your clothes are all there.”

“Huh?”

“Well, either all your clothes are wherever I’m dropping you off, or you don’t run up much of a laundry bill.”

“Yeah,” I said, tugging at my brand-new shirt, the fabric stiff, chafing my armpits. “I have a whole wardrobe waiting for me.”

“Gotcha.” She scribbled some more in her notebook as I tried unsuccessfully to read over her shoulder.

Traffic began to thin out as we got farther from the tunnel. I didn’t recognize where we were, but Amanda seemed confident in her bearings. The skyscrapers of New York were gone, replaced by high-tension power lines and smokestacks peppering the bluish-gray landscape. I’d never been to New Jersey. I’d never been to a lot of places. Funny that it took being wanted for murder to get me to see more of the country.

Amanda’s notebook lay open on the armrest, and I decided to sneak a look. Her handwriting was cursive, flowing in decorative, effortless loops. Surprisingly I glimpsed my name—or rather the name of Carl Bernstein—at the top of the page.

“What are you writing?” I asked.

“Just taking notes,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Notes on what?”

“You.”

“What do you mean? You’re taking notes on me?”

“Yup.”

Just my luck, I thought. Probably hitched a ride with an FBI profiler’s daughter.

“What kind of notes?”

“Just observations and stuff,” she said, without a hint of annoyance. “Personality, clothes, speech patterns. Just things I notice.”

Except for Carl’s name in large lettering, her handwriting was too small for me to make out the rest of her notes.

“So tell me. What have you observed about me in the twenty minutes we’ve known each other?”

“That’s none of your business, actually.”

“If you’re writing about me, it is my business. It’s my business very much.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Amanda replied. “See, this is my car and my notebook. I’m writing this for my own eyes, nobody else’s. What, you have a criminal record you don’t want exposed? Should I drop you off somewhere on the turnpike?”

“That wouldn’t be very appreciated.”

“Well, when I’m in your car, you can take all the notes on me you want. I won’t ask questions.”

“I’ll remember that.” She nodded, reached down and flipped the notebook closed.

Time flew by as Amanda coasted down the highway. I wondered how many other passengers she had written drive-by profiles on. Despite the temptation, I refrained from asking. The less Amanda knew about me—and vice versa—the better. She could ruminate all she wanted about Carl Bernstein, but I couldn’t let her know Henry Parker.

After an hour of complete silence, punctured only by the wailing strains of an all-girl rock band on the radio—something about “de-manning” their respective boyfriends—I decided to spark some friendly conversation.

“So, what’s in St. Louis?”

“Home,” Amanda said. “I have two months before the bar and my folks are on vacation in the Greek Isles. I have the entire place to myself to study in peace and quiet.”

“You’re in law school?”

“No,” she replied, sarcasm dripping. “I’m taking the bar exam for veterinarians.”

“Man,” I said, rolling my eyes. “It must be exciting to be so funny. And
that’s
my first observation about
you.
”

“Touché,” she said. Then her tone turned serious. “Actually, I want to be a child advocacy council. Custody cases, abandonment. Domestic issues, you know?”

“That’s very noble of you.”

Amanda shrugged. “I don’t care if it’s noble, it’s just what I want to do. Applying for sainthood didn’t really cross my mind.” She waited a moment, then said, “What about you? What do you do?”

“I want to be a journalist,” I said. She smiled at me, and I felt a swell of pride. “I want to be the next Bo…big investigative reporter.”

“Noble,” she said, and I laughed.

“I used to think so. Now every reporter ends up their own biggest story.”

M
auser sipped a cup of scalding coffee. His calves burned from the chase that morning and the caffeine would quicken his blood flow. He wanted to retain a sense of urgency until he found Parker. If he invited a heart attack in the process, so be it. He was in decent shape for a man of years—as Linda often called him—but working out didn’t prepare you for the exertion of real life. Full speed, no timeouts, no water breaks. What kept him going was catching John’s killer. That made the pain subside.

He’d alternated hot and cold packs upon returning to Federal Plaza. Denton had phoned ahead to Louis Carruthers, who deployed NYPD uniformed officers to guard all potential subway exits for the 6 train between Harlem and Union Square.

Guarding the subway was near pointless, Mauser thought, adding more cream and sugar to his steaming brew. Parker would be long gone by the time the first cop arrived, and with so many exit points the chances that they’d catch him there were slim. All they could do was sit and wait. Wait for someone to recognize him. Wait for Parker to make a move, slip up. Expose himself.

Parker had all but run out of contacts in New York. Joe had any and all possibilities covered. A plainclothes was staking out Mya Loverne’s apartment, instructed to tail her to and from work. Another two were stationed outside the
Gazette.
Chances were Parker had given up on both venues, but they had to be thorough. He’d already tapped the Parker residence in Bend, Oregon, but surprisingly Henry hadn’t attempted to contact his parents. There had to be a reason for his silence. Perhaps there was an estrangement they didn’t know about.

Twenty-goddamn-four years old, Joe thought. If he’d been caught up in a shit storm like Parker’s at twenty-four, he would have thrown himself off the Brooklyn Bridge by now. Parker, though, didn’t seem to be in that frame of mind. He wouldn’t have run otherwise. Regardless, Mauser had to find the kid before some patrolman got lucky. He didn’t want anybody else to administer punishment first.

Mauser closed the folder on his lap. A mound of paper saying nothing. They were playing this game as reactionaries, responding to Parker’s movements rather than instigating their own. Just as he added a fourth packet of sugar to the coffee, Denton burst into the room. Mauser’s eyes perked up.

“Well?” he said.

“We got a hit,” Denton said. Mauser set the folder aside, looked at Denton expectantly.

“Whadda you got?”

“Parker made a phone call,” Denton said, his eyes blazing. “We’ve been monitoring all credit cards linked to Parker and his family. Scary how few there are, actually. My nephew? Kid’s thirteen, has eight credit cards. But the Parker clan, there’s three of ’em and they have two credit cards between them.”

“So let’s go, what’s with this phone call?”

“Phone company’s records show that last year Parker bought a calling card, one of those cards where there’s no spending limit, it’s linked to your credit card. You call 1-800-COLLECT or an operator, plug in the number and they connect your call. Bill comes at the end of the month.” Denton handed a printed record to Mauser, who scanned it.

“Only two charges on the card,” Mauser noted.

“One of them this morning, 8:56 a.m.”

“St. Louis,” Mauser said. “The fuck’s he know in St. Louis?”

“The number’s a cell phone, registered to one Lawrence Stein. Married to Harriet Stein. They have a daughter named Amanda Davies.”

“Wait,” Mauser said. “Is it Davies or Stein?”

Denton handed Mauser another folder. Inside were scans of three driver’s licenses, one from each of the parties.

“Amanda Davies is Harriet and Lawrence Stein’s daughter. Adopted daughter, that is. Little Amanda spent eleven years being shuttled from home to home before kindly Mr. and Mrs. Stein took her in for good. It seems our Amanda declined to have her name legally changed to Stein, kept her birth name Davies instead.”

Mauser asked, “Is she an old girlfriend?”

“Maybe a friend, but not from college. She’s in law school at NYU, studying child advocacy, lives in the dorms down there.”

“You checking her apartment’s call log?”

“Already done,” Denton said. “No matches to our man. Cross-checked Parker’s residences at Cornell, so far we’re coming up empty.”

Mauser rubbed the stubble on his chin. He needed a shave badly, needed sleep and a hot shower. He’d hoped to have Parker by now. Every moment John Fredrickson’s killer lived ate away at Joe from the inside. The hunt steeled his resolve while gnawing away at everything else.

“Davies…is it possible Parker was seeing her on the side? Taking a little extracurricular pokey without Mya Loverne knowing?”

“Doubtful,” Denton said, pouring a cup from the pot. He took a sip and grimaced, leaving the cup for dead on the table-top.

Denton continued. “Let’s look at it from Parker’s perspective. You’re new to the city, looking for your career break. David Loverne’s someone you want on your side, or at least not want to piss off. Would you cheat on his daughter? You might get your rocks off for a few minutes, but if Daddy found out about it you’d have trouble hailing a cab without getting a summons, and you can bet any public defender assigned to him will give him a defense worthy of the worst bus-stop ambulance chaser.”

Mauser thought for a moment, then said, “Check Parker and Davies’s phone records going back the last five years. Parker’s desperate, grasping at straws. There’s a chance he reached out to Davies because she was the only option.”

“There’s something else,” Denton said.

“Yeah?”

“We ran a trace on all credit cards registered to Amanda Davies and Harriet and Lawrence Stein. New purchases, etc.—”

“And?” Mauser said, failing to keep the anxiousness out of his voice.

“We got a hit on an E-Z Pass going through the Holland Tunnel at nine twenty-seven this morning.”

Mauser furrowed his brow, surprised. “They’re going to Jersey?”

Denton seemed to change his mind about the coffee, picking it off the table and taking a deep swallow. He grimaced again.

“God, this is some terrible shit. It’s doubtful Jersey’s their final destination, but if you’re headed to St. Louis to visit the lovely Stein family, the Holland Tunnel’s how you leave the city. Right now all we can do is keep track of the E-Z Pass. If we get more hits or Amanda makes any credit card purchases we’ll be on top of it. If it looks like she’s heading to St. Louis, we’ll be on the first flight out there.”

“Sounds awfully sketchy,” Mauser said.

“That’s ’cause it is.” Denton stood, picked up his nearly full cup and tossed it in the trash. “Fucking worst coffee I’ve ever had.”

He sat back down and looked at Mauser. Denton’s eyes seemed to be searching for truth without asking for it, as if waiting for Mauser to shed some light he hadn’t been able to find on his own. Mauser stayed stone-cold, giving away nothing. Denton was in this for his career, nothing more. And while Joe could use that to his advantage, the case was personal to him and him alone.

“So,” Denton said, breaking the silence. “We haven’t talked about this, but how are you holdin’ up?”

Mauser shook his head, ran his fingers through his hair. His eyes were bloodshot, clothes so heavy they weighed him down. Sleep was out of the question.

His brother-in-law. One of his best friends—one of his only friends—was cold on a slab in a basement. His heart punctured by a bullet, shot by a stranger. A man who didn’t know his family, didn’t know Linda. A goddamn junkie whose only use to society was as an organ donor.

Mauser could feel hatred coursing through his veins, lighting his nerve endings until he was ready to explode. But he held it in, let the rage out through his gnashed teeth and clenched fists. Mauser knew as well as anyone that you didn’t work smarter when fueled by anger. Mistakes would get in the way. Precision over passion.

Let the pain boil just below the surface. Let it simmer awhile. You’ll know when it’s time to let it boil over.

Joe stood up, tucked Parker’s file underneath his arm. “I want a plane on standby. If Davies gets within a hundred miles of St. Louis, I want to be in the air in half an hour.”

“You got it,” Denton said, a smile on his face. “Anything else?”

“The Steins’ residence in St. Louis. I want phone taps.”

“Done.”

Mauser said, “As of right now, Amanda Davies is our number-one lead. Keep a lock on her E-Z Pass, it’s accepted on every major highway in this country, if they used it once they’ll use it the whole trip. But we can’t assume anything. I don’t want to end up in St. Louis, find out he was wishing her happy birthday and managed to catch a ferry to the Azores. Parker’s got a limited supply of cash so keep his credit cards active in the event he tries to hit an ATM.”

“What about that package the Guzmans mentioned? The drugs? Christine Guzman said he stole a bag of dope, carried it out in some sort of briefcase or knapsack. She said he left the crime scene with it last night.”

“We don’t even know if he still has it. Parker could have stashed it anywhere, a train station or bus terminal locker,” Mauser said. “The dope is secondary. Once we have him, we’ll find it.”

Denton didn’t seem relieved by this. “John was killed over that dope, Joe. Maybe if we find it we’ll get a lead on Parker.”

Mauser shook his head.

“Right now, we’re looking for Henry Parker, not a fucking dime bag. We’ll find the dope, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Elvis, JFK and any other shit he stole once we get him. But right now Parker has precious few friends and seems smart enough not to give himself away. We’re going to have to be creative.”

Denton nodded, headed for the door. Mauser’s arm lashed out, catching the younger man’s shoulder. Denton whirled around, caught by surprise. Mauser’s grip tightened, feeling Denton’s bones shift beneath the skin. “But make no mistake. Right now, Amanda Davies is a possible accomplice to murder. If I think they’re heading west, I want to be in the air before the next commercial break. If anyone gets to Henry Parker before we do…”

Denton’s face paled. Mauser could tell he understood.

“They won’t,” he said. “We’ll be there first.”

When Denton left the room, Joe locked the door and picked up the phone. He took a long breath, felt a weight descending behind his eyelids. He dreaded this, dreaded every second speaking to her. Parker had done this to him. He’d made the simple activity of talking to his sister an event to be feared.

After a moment, when his breathing slowed, he dialed. Part of him hoped nobody would pick up. Out of sight, out of mind. His heart fluttered when he heard her voice answer with a tired, “Hello?”

“Linda. It’s Joe.”

“Joe,” his sister said, her voice heavy. She sounded sedated. “How are you?”

“I’m okay, Lin.”

“It’s good to hear your voice, Joe. These people won’t stop calling. Newspapers and reporters. Goddamn vultures.”

“Maybe you should book a hotel for a few days,” Mauser said. “The department will pick up the tab.” He could almost hear her shaking her head on the other end.

“The kids need to be able to reach me. I don’t want to hide. I don’t want to upset their lives any more than they already have been.”

“The kids’ll be fine, Lin. You need to take care of yourself.” He heard a wistful laugh on the other end. Then Linda began to sob. Joe felt his cheeks go flush as his sister wept for her lost husband.

“Linda?” he said, his chest contracting, hot tears filling up his eyes. “Lin, please talk to me.” She blew her nose, a pitiful rattle.

“Funny,” Linda said. “It was always John who said he’d take care of me. He never said anything about me taking care of myself. I guess I just believed he’d always be there, and I wouldn’t have to worry. Why’d he have to leave me? Jesus, Joe. I loved him so much.”

Mauser felt a tear slide down his cheek, sobs racking his throat.

“I know you did, Lin. I did, too. I know it’s no consolation, but I’ll be there for you. Now and always.”

“Thanks, Joe. I know you will.”

“You want me to come over?”

“No,” she said with an air of finality. “I need to be alone right now. I know that sounds selfish since he was your family, too—but I need this. Do you understand? Please tell me you do.” Mauser said he did.

“Can I do anything for you? Bring you anything?”

“You can do one thing for me,” Linda said. Mauser felt a chill run down his spine.

“Name it.”

“I want you to kill the man who killed my husband. I don’t care what it takes, Joe. You find him and you fucking cut his head off.”

“Lin…”

“I know, I know,” she said. “Thanks for calling, Joe.”

“I’ll talk to you soon.”

“I love you.”

The words leaked from his mouth like a balloon’s final gasp of air. “I love you, too.”

Mauser put the receiver down. He dropped his head into his hands as convulsions of sadness and rage seized his body. When Joe looked up, his vision was streaked, his eyes burned.

For Linda, he thought.

For me.