Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (132 page)

“Do you recall who might have bought the dresses?”

“I’m not sure I remember. But if I saw some photographs, I might be able to tell you. Pictures might jog my memory. Do the police still do that?”

“Do what?”

“Have people look through mug shots? Or is that something they only do on TV?”

“No, we do a lot of that,” Jessica said. “Would you be willing to come down to the Roundhouse right now?”

“Of course,” Roland said. “Anything I can do to help.”

52

The traffic on Eighteenth Street was snarled. Cars were slipping and sliding. The temperature was dropping rapidly and the sleet was relentless.

A million thoughts raced through Kevin Byrne’s mind. He thought about the other times in his career when he had faced a gun. He wasn’t getting any better at it. His stomach was tied in steel knots.

“You don’t want to do this, Mr. Clarke,” Byrne said again. “There’s still time to call this off.”

Clarke remained silent. Byrne glanced into the rearview mirror. Clarke had the thousand-yard stare in place.

“You don’t get it,” Clarke finally said.

“I
do
get it.”

“No, you don’t. How could you? Have you ever lost someone you love to violence?”

Byrne had not. But he had come close once. He had almost lost everything once when his daughter had been in the hands of a killer. He had nearly crossed the threshold of sanity himself that dark day.

“Pull over,” Clarke said.

Byrne eased the car to the curb. He put it in park, kept it running. The only sound was the click and clack of the windshield wipers keeping time with Byrne’s hammering heart.

“What now?” Byrne asked.

“We’re going to go into the diner, and we are going to end this. For you and me.”

Byrne glanced at the diner. Through the mist of freezing rain, the lights sparkled and shimmered. The front window had been replaced already. The floor had been bleached clean. It was as if nothing had occurred in there. Except it had. And that was the reason they were back.

“It doesn’t have to end this way,” Byrne said. “If you put down the weapon, there’s still a chance of getting your life back.”

“You mean I can just walk away like this never happened?”

“No,” Byrne said. “I’m not going to insult you by telling you that. But you can get help.”

Byrne glanced again in the rearview. And saw it.

There were now two small red dots of light on Clarke’s chest.

Byrne closed his eyes for the moment. This was the best of news, the worst of news. He had kept the phone open the whole time, ever since Clarke had confronted him at the pump house. Obviously, Nick Palladino had called SWAT, and they had deployed at the diner. For the second time in about a week. Byrne glanced up the street. He spotted SWAT officers positioned at the mouth of the alley next to the diner.

This could all end suddenly, violently. Byrne wanted the former, but not the latter. He was fair at negotiation tactics, but far from an expert. Rule number one. Remain calm. No one has to die. “I’m going to tell you something,” Byrne said. “And I want you to listen carefully. Do you understand?”

Silence. The man was about to blow.

“Mr. Clarke?”

“What?”

“I need to tell you something. But first you must do exactly as I say. You must sit absolutely still.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you noticed that there is no traffic?”

Clarke looked out the window. A block away, a pair of sector cars had blocked Eighteenth Street.

“Why are they doing that?” Clarke asked.

“I’ll tell you all about it in a second. But first I want you to look down, very slowly. Just tilt your head. No sudden moves. Look down at your chest, Mr. Clarke.”

Clarke did as Byrne suggested. “What is
this
?” he asked.

“This is the end of things, Mr. Clarke. Those are laser sights. They are coming from the rifles of two SWAT officers.”

“Why are they on
me
?”

Oh God,
Byrne thought.
This was far worse than he imagined. Matthew Clarke was beyond recall.

“Again, do not move your body,” Byrne said. “Just your eyes. I want you to look at my hands now, Mr. Clarke.” Byrne had both hands on the steering wheel, at the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions. “Can you see my hands?”

“Your hands? What about them?”

“See how they’re gripping the wheel?” Byrne asked.

“Yes.”

“If I so much as lift the index finger on my right hand, they will pull the trigger. They will take the shot,” Byrne said, hoping it rang true. “Remember what happened to Anton Krotz in the diner?”

Byrne could hear Matthew Clarke begin to sob. “Yes.”

“That was one shooter. This is two.”

“I … I don’t care. I’ll shoot you first.”

“You’ll never get the shot off. If
I
move, it’s over. One single millimeter. It’s over.”

Byrne watched Clarke in the rearview. He was about to unhinge any second.

“You’ve got children, Mr. Clarke,” Byrne said. “Think of them. You don’t want to leave them this legacy.”

Clarke shook his head, rapidly, side to side. “They’re not going to let me go today, are they?”

“No,” Byrne said. “But from the moment you lower the gun, your life will begin to get better. You’re not like Anton Krotz, Matt. You’re not like him.”

Clarke’s shoulders began to shake. “Laura.”

Byrne let it play for a few moments. “Matt?”

Clarke looked up, his face streaked with tears. Byrne had never seen a man so close to the edge.

“They’re not going to wait much longer,” Byrne said. “Help me help you.”

Then, in Clarke’s reddened eyes, Byrne saw it. The crack in the man’s resolve. Clarke lowered his weapon. Instantly a shadow crossed the left side of the car, obscured by the pall of freezing rain that streaked the windows. Byrne glanced over. It was Nick Palladino. He had a shotgun leveled at Matthew Clarke’s head.

“Put the weapon on the floor, and your hands above your head!”
Nick shouted.
“Do it now!”

Clarke didn’t move. Nick racked the shotgun.

“Now!”

After an agonizingly long second, Matthew Clarke complied. In the next second the door was thrown open and Clarke was pulled from the car, thrown roughly to the street, instantly surrounded by police officers.

A few moments later, as Matthew Clarke lay face down in the middle of Eighteenth Street in the winter rain, his arms out to his sides, a SWAT officer aimed his rifle at the man’s head. A uniformed officer approached, put a knee to Clarke’s back, roughly pulled his wrists together and handcuffed him.

Byrne thought about the overwhelming power of grief, the unyielding grip of madness that must have led Matthew Clarke to this moment.

The officers yanked Clarke to his feet. Before they stuffed him into the back of a nearby sector car, he looked at Byrne.

Whoever Clarke had been a few weeks earlier, the person who had presented himself to the world in the guise of Matthew Clarke—husband, father, citizen—no longer existed. When Byrne stared into the man’s eyes, he did not detect even a flicker of life. Instead, he saw a man disintegrated, and where a soul should have been there now burned the cold blue flame of madness.

53

Jessica found Byrne in the back room at the diner, a towel around his neck, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. The rain had turned everything to ice, and the whole city was moving at a crawl. She had been back at the Roundhouse going through mug books with Roland Hannah when the officer-needs-assistance call had come in. All but a handful of detectives had rushed out the door. Whenever a cop was in distress the entire available force headed in their direction. When Jessica pulled up to the diner there had to have been ten sector cars on Eighteenth Street.

Jessica crossed the diner, Byrne stood. They embraced. It wasn’t something you were supposed to do, but she couldn’t care less. When the call went out, she was convinced she would never see him again. If that ever happened, a piece of her would most certainly have died with him.

They broke the embrace, looked around the diner a little awkwardly. They sat down.

“You okay?” Jessica asked.

Byrne nodded. Jessica wasn’t so sure.

“Where did this start?” she asked.

“Up in Shawmont. At the waterworks.”

“He followed you up there?”

Byrne nodded. “He must have.”

Jessica thought about it. At any given time, any detective on the force might be the subject of a stalker—current investigations, old investigations, crazy people you put away years ago getting out of prison. She thought about Walt Brigham’s body on the side of the road. Anything could happen at any time.

“He was going to do it right where his wife was killed,” Byrne said. “Me first, then himself.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, well. There’s more.”

Jessica couldn’t imagine what he meant. “What do you mean,
more
?”

Byrne sipped his coffee. “I saw him.”

“You saw him? You saw who?”

“Our doer.”

“
What?
What are you talking about?”

“At the Shawmont site. He was across the river, just watching me.”

“How do you know it was him?”

Byrne stared into his coffee for a moment. “The way you know anything in this job. It was him.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

Byrne shook his head. “No. He was on the other side of the river. In the rain.”

“What did he do?”

“He didn’t do anything. I think he wanted to come back to the scene, and figured the other side of the river would be safe.”

Jessica considered this. It was common enough, coming back like that.

“That’s why I called Nick to begin with,” Byrne said. “If I hadn’t …”

Jessica knew what he meant. If he hadn’t called it in he might be laying on the floor in the Crystal Diner, ringed by a pool of blood.

“Did we hear from the bird breeders in Delaware yet?” Byrne asked, clearly attempting to shift the focus.

“Nothing yet,” Jessica said. “I was thinking we should look into subscription lists to bird breeding magazines. There can’t be that many subscribers in—”

“Tony’s already on it,” Byrne said.

Jessica should have known. Even in the middle of all this Byrne was thinking. He sipped his coffee, turned to her, half smiled. “And how was
your
day?” he asked.

Jessica smiled back. She hoped it looked genuine. “Far less adventurous, thank God.” She related the morning and afternoon at the thrift stores, about meeting Roland Hannah. “I’ve got him looking at mugs right now. He operates a church thrift store. He might have sold our boy the dresses.”

Byrne drained his coffee, stood. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “I mean, I like this place, but not this much.”

“The boss wants you to go home.”

“I’m fine,” Byrne said.

“You sure?”

Byrne didn’t answer. A few moments later a uniformed officer crossed the diner, handed Byrne his weapon. Byrne could tell from its heft that the magazine had been replaced. When Nick Palladino had listened to Byrne and Matthew Clarke on Byrne’s open cell-phone line, he had dispatched a sector car to the Shawmont site to retrieve the weapon. Philly didn’t need another gun on the street.

“Where’s our Amish detective?” Byrne asked Jessica.

“Josh is working the bookstores, seeing if anybody remembers selling books on bird breeding, exotic birds and the like.”

“He’s all right,” Byrne said.

Jessica didn’t know what to say. Coming from Kevin Byrne, this was high praise.

“What are you going to do now?” Jessica asked.

“Well, I
am
going to go home, but just to take a hot shower and change clothes. Then I’m going to hit the streets. Maybe somebody else saw this guy standing on the other side of the river. Or saw his car pull over.”

“Want some help?” she asked.

“No, I’m good. You stick with the rope and the bird breeders. I’ll call you in an hour.”

54

Byrne took Hollow Road down to the river. He passed beneath the expressway, parked the car, got out. The hot shower had done him some good, but unless the man for whom they were looking was still standing there, on the bank of the river, hands behind his back, waiting to be cuffed, this was going to be a shitty day. But then every day you had a gun pointed at you was a shitty day.

The rain had let up, but the ice remained. It all but covered the city. Byrne made his way carefully down the slope to the edge of the river. He stood between two barren trees, directly across from the pump house, the hum of the cars on the expressway behind him. He looked at the pump house. Even from this distance, the structure was imposing.

He stood in the exact spot where the man who had been watching him had stood. He thanked God that the man in question was not a sniper. Byrne imagined someone with a scope rifle standing there, leaning on the tree for balance. He could have picked Byrne off with ease.

He looked at the ground in the immediate area. No cigarette butts, no convenient glossy candy wrappers to dust for prints.

Byrne crouched down on the riverbank. The flowing water was just inches away. He leaned forward, touched a finger to the freezing current and—

—saw a man carrying Tara Grendel up to the pump house … a featureless man staring at the moon … a length of blue and white rope in his hands … heard the sound of a small boat slapping against stone … saw two flowers, one white, one red, and—

—pulled his hand back, as if the water had been on fire. The images were getting stronger, clearer, more unnerving.

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes
.

Something was coming.

Two flowers.

A few seconds later his cell phone rang. Byrne stood, flipped open the phone, answered. It was Jessica.