Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (19 page)

“They pass it around, casual, right on the corner, like it’s legal, right? I’m waiting, watching. Then one of the kids offers the joint to Colleen and I knew, I
knew
she was going to take it and smoke it. I knew she would grab it and take a long, slow hit off this blunt, and I suddenly saw the next five years of her life. Pot and booze and coke and rehab and Sylvan to get her grades back up and more drugs and the pill and then . . . then the most incredible thing happened.”

Jessica realized she was staring at Byrne, rapt, waiting for him to finish. She snapped out of it, prodded. “Okay. What happened?”

“She just . . . shook her head,” Byrne said. “Just like that.
No thanks
. I doubted her at that moment, I completely broke faith with my little girl, and I wanted to tear my eyes out of my head. I was given the opportunity to trust her, completely unobserved, and I failed.
I
failed. Not her.”

Jessica nodded, trying not to think about the fact that she was going to have to deal with a moment like that with Sophie in about ten years, not looking forward to it at all.

“And it suddenly occurred to me,” Byrne said, “after all these years of worry, all these years of treating her as if she were fragile, all these years of walking on the street side of the sidewalk, all these years of staring down the idiots watching her sign in public and thinking she was a freak, all of it was unnecessary. She’s ten times tougher than I am. She could kick my ass.”

“Kids will surprise you.” Jessica realized how inadequate it sounded when she said it, how completely uninformed she was on this subject.

“I mean, of all the things you fear for your kid: diabetes, leukemia, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer—my little girl was deaf. That’s it. Other than that, she’s perfect in every way. Heart, lungs, eyes, limbs, mind. Perfect. She can run like the wind, jump high. And she has this smile . . . this smile that could melt the glaciers. All this time I thought she was handicapped because she couldn’t hear. It was me. I’m the one who needs a freakin’ telethon. I didn’t realize how lucky we are.”

Jessica didn’t know what to say. She had mistakenly summed up Kevin Byrne as a streetwise guy who muscled his way through his life and his job, a guy who ran on instinct instead of intellect. There was quite a bit more at work here than she realized. She suddenly felt like she had won the lottery in being partnered with him.

Before Jessica could respond, two teenaged girls approached the corner, umbrellas up and open against the drizzle.

“There they are,” Byrne said.

Jessica capped her coffee, buttoned her raincoat.

“This is more your turf.” Byrne nodded toward the girls, lighting a cigarette, hunkering down in the comfortable—read: dry—seat. “You should handle the questions.”

Right,
Jessica thought.
I suppose it has nothing to do with standing in the rain at seven o’clock in the morning.
She waited for a break in the traffic, got out of the car, crossed the street.

On the corner were two girls in Nazarene school uniforms. One was a tall, dark-skinned black girl with the most elaborate network of corn-rowed hair Jessica had ever seen. She was at least six feet tall and stunningly beautiful. The other girl was white, petite, and small-boned. They both carried umbrellas in one hand, wadded-up tissues in the other. Both had red, puffy eyes. Obviously, they had already heard about Tessa.

Jessica approached, showed them her badge, told them she was investigating Tessa’s death. They agreed to talk to her. Their names were Patrice Regan and Ashia Whitman. Ashia was Somali.

“Did you see Tessa at all on Friday?” Jessica asked.

They shook their heads in unison.

“She didn’t come to the bus stop?”

“No,” Patrice said.

“Did she miss a lot of days?”

“Not a lot,” Ashia said between sniffles. “Once in a while.”

“Was she the type to bag school?” Jessica asked.

“Tessa?” Patrice asked, incredulous. “No way. Like,
never
.”

“What did you think when she didn’t show?”

“We just figured she wasn’t feeling good or something,” Patrice said. “Or it had something to do with her dad. Her dad’s pretty sick, you know. Sometimes she has to take him to the hospital.”

“Did you call her or talk to her during the day?” Jessica asked.

“No.”

“Do you know anybody who might have talked to her?”

“No,” Patrice said. “Not that I know of.”

“What about drugs? Was she into the drug scene?”

“
God,
no,” Patrice said. “She was like Sister Mary Narc.”

“Last year, when she took off three weeks, did you talk to her much?”

Patrice glanced at Ashia. There were secrets entombed in that look. “Not really.”

Jessica decided not to push. She consulted her notes. “Do you guys know a boy named Sean Brennan?”

“Yeah,” Patrice said. “I do. I don’t think Ashia ever met him.”

Jessica looked at Ashia. She shrugged.

“How long were they seeing each other?” Jessica asked.

“Not sure,” Patrice said. “Maybe a couple of months or so.”

“Was Tessa still seeing him?”

“No,” Patrice said. “His family moved away.”

“Where to?”

“Denver, I think.”

“When?”

“I’m not sure. About a month ago, I think.”

“Do you know where Sean went to school?”

“Neumann,” Patrice said.

Jessica made notes. Her pad was getting wet. She put it in her pocket. “Did they break up?”

“Yeah,” Patrice said. “Tessa was pretty upset.”

“What about Sean? Did he have a temper?”

Patrice just shrugged. In other words, yes, but she didn’t want to get anybody in trouble.

“Did you ever see him hurt Tessa?”

“No,” Patrice said. “Nothing like that. He was just . . . just a guy. You know.”

Jessica waited for more. More was not forthcoming. She moved on. “Can you think of anyone Tessa didn’t get along with? Anyone who might have wanted to do her harm?”

This question started the waterworks again. Both girls began to cry, wiping at their eyes. They shook their heads.

“Was she seeing anyone else after Sean? Anyone who might have been bothering her?”

The girls thought for a few seconds, and again shook their heads in unison.

“Did Tessa ever see Dr. Parkhurst at school?”

“Sure,” Patrice said.

“Did she like him?”

“I guess.”

“Did Dr. Parkhurst ever see her outside of school?” Jessica asked.

“Outside?”

“As in socially.”

“What, like a date or something?” Patrice asked. She screwed up her face at the idea of Tessa dating a man as ancient as thirty or so. As
if
. “Uh,
no
.”

“Do you guys ever go to him for guidance counseling?” Jessica asked.

“Sure,” Patrice said. “Everybody does.”

“What sorts of things do you talk about?”

Patrice thought about it for a few seconds. Jessica could see that the girl was concealing something. “School, mostly. College apps, SATs, stuff like that.”

“Ever talk about anything personal?”

Eyes earthward. Again.

Bingo,
Jessica thought.

“Sometimes,” Patrice said.

“What sort of personal things?” Jessica asked, recalling Sister Mercedes, the guidance counselor at Nazarene when she attended. Sister Mercedes was built like John Goodman and had a perpetual scowl. The only personal thing you talked about with Sister Mercedes was your promise not to have sex until you were forty.

“I don’t know,” Patrice said, getting interested in her shoes again. “Stuff.”

“Did you talk about the boys you were seeing? Things like that?”

“Sometimes,” Ashia answered.

“Did he ever ask you to talk about things that you found embarrassing? Or maybe a little bit too personal?”

“I don’t think so,” Patrice said. “Not that I can, you know, remember.”

Jessica could see that she was losing her. She pulled out a pair of business cards and handed one each to the two girls. “Look,” she began. “I know this is tough. If you think of anything that can help us find the guy who did this, give us a call. Or if you just want to talk. Whatever. Okay? Day or night.”

Ashia took the card, remained silent, the tears building again. Patrice took the card, nodded. In unison, like synchronized mourners, the two girls lifted the balled tissues in their hands and dabbed at their eyes.

“I went to Nazarene,” Jessica added.

The two girls looked at each other, as if she had just told them she had once attended the Hogwart School.

“Seriously?” Ashia asked.

“Sure,” Jessica said. “Do you guys still carve stuff under the stage in the old auditorium?”

“
Oh
yeah,” Patrice said.

“Well, if you look right under the newel post on the stairs leading under the stage, on the right-hand side, there is a carving that reads
JG AND BB 4EVER
.”

“That was you?” Patrice looked quizzically at the business card.

“I was Jessica Giovanni then. I carved that in tenth grade.”

“Who was BB?” Patrice asked.

“Bobby Bonfante. He went to Father Judge.”

The girls nodded. Father Judge boys were, for the most part, pretty irresistible.

Jessica added: “He looked like Al Pacino.”

The two girls glanced at each other, as if to say:
Al Pacino? Isn’t he, like, grandpa old?
“Is that the old guy who was in
The Recruit
with Colin Farrell?” Patrice asked.

“A young Al Pacino,” Jessica added.

The girls smiled. Sadly, but they smiled.

“So did it last forever with Bobby?” Ashia asked.

Jessica wanted to tell these young girls that it never does. “No,” she said. “Bobby lives in Newark now. Five kids.”

The girls nodded again in deep understanding of love and loss. Jessica had them back. Time to cut it off. She’d take another run at them later.

“By the way, when do you guys get off for Easter break?” Jessica asked.

“Tomorrow,” Ashia said, her sobs all but dried.

Jessica flipped up her hood. The rain had already ruined whatever style her hair had held, but now it was starting to come down hard.

“Can I ask you something?” Patrice asked.

“Sure.”

“Why . . . why did you become a cop?”

Even before Patrice’s question, Jessica had a feeling that the girl was going to ask her that. It still didn’t make the answer any easier. She wasn’t entirely sure herself. There was legacy; there was Michael’s death. There were reasons even
she
didn’t know yet. In the end she said, modestly: “I like to help people.”

Patrice dabbed her eyes again. “Does it ever, you know, creep you out?” she asked. “You know, to be around . . .”

Dead people,
Jessica finished, in her mind. “Yeah,” she said. “Sometimes.”

Patrice nodded, finding common ground with Jessica. She pointed at Kevin Byrne, sitting in the Taurus across the street. “Is he your boss?”

Jessica looked over, looked back, smiled. “No,” she said. “He’s my partner.”

Patrice absorbed this. She smiled through her tears, perhaps in the understanding that Jessica was her own woman, and said, simply: “Cool.”

J
ESSICA SHOOK OFF as much rain as she could, then slipped into the car.

“Anything?” Byrne asked.

“Not really,” Jessica said, consulting her notepad. It was soaked. She tossed it into the backseat. “Sean Brennan’s family moved to Denver about a month ago. They said Tessa wasn’t seeing anyone else. Patrice said he was kind of a hothead.”

“Worth looking at?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll put in a call to the Denver Board of Ed. See if young Mr. Brennan has missed any days recently.”

“What about Dr. Parkhurst?”

“There’s something there. I can feel it.”

“What’s your gut?”

“I think they talk about personal things with him. I think
they
think he’s a little
too
personal.”

“Do you think Tessa was seeing him?”

“If she was, she didn’t confide in her friends,” Jessica said. “I asked them about Tessa’s three-week sabbatical from school last year. They got hinky. Something happened to Tessa around Thanksgiving last year.”

For a few moments, the investigation halted, their separate thoughts met only by the staccato rhythms of the rain on the roof of the car.

Byrne’s phone chirped as he started the Taurus. He flipped the cell open.

“Byrne . . . yeah . . . yeah . . . out
standing,
” he said. “Thanks.” He flipped the phone closed.

Jessica looked at Byrne, waiting. When it became clear that he was not about to share, she asked. If reticence was his nature, nosiness was hers. If this relationship was going to work, they would have to find a way to jigsaw the two.

“Good news?”

Byrne glanced over at her, as if he had forgotten she was in the car. “Yeah. The lab just made a case for me. They matched a hair with evidence found on a vic,” he said. “This fucker is
mine
.”

Byrne gave her a recap of the Gideon Pratt case. Jessica heard the passion in his voice, the deep sense of subdued rage as he talked about the brutal, senseless death of Deirdre Pettigrew.

“Gotta make a quick stop,” he said.

A few minutes later they came to a rolling rest in front of a proud but struggling row house on Ingersoll Street. The rain was coming down in broad, cold sheets. As they exited the car and drew near the house, Jessica saw a frail, light-skinned black woman in her forties standing in the doorway. She wore a quilted magenta housecoat and tinted, oversized glasses. Her hair was in a multicolored African wrap; her feet were clad in white plastic sandals at least two sizes too large.

The woman put her hand to her breastbone when she saw Byrne, as if the sight of him stole her ability to breathe. A lifetime of bad news had walked up these steps, it seemed, and it probably all came from the lips of people who looked like Kevin Byrne. Big white men who were cops, tax assessors, welfare agents, landlords.