The Broken Ones (24 page)

The air between the buttresses beneath the bridge smelled of salty mud and wet concrete. The sky had grown as dark as evening; hard rain was only minutes away. A wide pedestrian path ran parallel with the river under the end of the bridge, and a narrow set of graffiti-slashed stairs led up to the road that the bridge emptied onto. A shifting knot of two dozen onlookers waited behind barrier tape. Uniformed police in blue knit sweaters or blue leather jackets seemed lashed to ice-white flashlight beams that scoured the path like erratic dogs. On the far side of the huddle, Detective Kace took notes while an Asian man in a Lions jersey and fishing pants nodded enthusiastically. Below the path, an embankment of large flinty rocks was a steep and slimy five-yard grade down to the dark water. Oily brown waves slapped at the rocks and gently twisted Lucas Purden’s pale ankles.

Oscar found Neve waiting well away from the crowd and the uniformed police.

“The Heights?” she said. “Fancy.”

He led her toward the barrier tape. “What are you doing in today? You should be home in bed. The summary report can wait.”

“It’s waited too long already.”

They showed their IDs and pushed through. Lingering above the tang of river salt rode the leathery scent of good tobacco smoke.

Haig leaned against one of the wide concrete columns under the bridge, his blue uniform almost black in the gloom. The end of his cigarillo glowed, and his eyes twinkled red under the glossy brim of his cap.

“Mariani.” Haig sounded pleased. “Go ahead, take a look. The boy’s not going anywhere.”

Two Scenes of Crime officers in white plastic overalls had rappelling ropes tied around their waists and were being helped up the treacherously slick rocks by stout officers on the path.

“Stay up here,” Oscar said to Neve.

“Screw that,” Neve replied quietly. “I’m coming.”

“Gloves?” Oscar asked the first forensic tech. The man reluctantly handed over two pairs.

Oscar and Neve climbed down slowly. No one offered ropes.

Lucas Purden was on his back, as if to better admire the arching cement girders. His lids and eyeballs had been pecked away by fish, and the rest of his skin was the sickly yellow-white of beef fat that had begun to turn. Oscar flicked on his flashlight. The dead boy’s fingers were pulp: splinters of pink and white bone speared through ruptured skin wadded with flesh. The legs of his pants were rolled up, and his loose ankles were bound together with large nylon cable ties. Purden’s feet looked as if they’d been shortened: the heels were recognizable, but the flesh forward of them had been pulverized; broken bones protruded like snapped chopsticks from the pale, pink-gray flesh. The top of his jeans had been rolled down to his upper thighs, and his once indefatigable penis had met the same fate as his fingers and toes. His belly was swollen, and he was starting to rot.

“Oh hell,” Neve whispered.

Oscar knelt awkwardly on the slippery rocks and lifted Purden’s wrist. The arm flopped, unresisting. Around both wrists were contusions so deep they had eaten through skin into flesh and tendon. Oscar carefully inspected the boy’s head. The face was waxy and cold, and the skin on his chin, forehead, and the tip of his nose was badly torn. Oscar gently rolled the boy’s head and parted his wet hair. The
back of his head had been flattened; in the middle of that plateau was a hollow the size of a toddler’s fist.

“A hammer?” Neve asked.

Oscar shrugged and nodded.

“What are these welts?” She touched one of Purden’s wrists. “Handcuffed?”

Oscar shined his flashlight on one of the dead boy’s wrists. The light picked out a fine, stiff hair embedded in the torn skin. A rope fiber.

“His chin and nose are torn,” Oscar said. “I think he was put on his stomach, a rope on each wrist pulled tight out in opposite directions, and his fingers, toes, penis were smashed until, I don’t know, his killer heard what he wanted or got his jollies. Then he stoved in the back of Luke’s skull.”

Neve prodded the boy’s tightly rounded belly.

“Three days.”

Oscar nodded. “Snatched pretty soon after we interviewed him.”

“Who by?”

Oscar turned off his flashlight. “By whoever paid him for information about the sewage-plant augers.”

When they climbed back up, Haig was waiting. Beside him stood Kace, her notepad ready and a small, strange smile on her face.

“Isn’t fishing a tonic?” Haig asked Oscar. “You know him?”

“You know we do. We interviewed him about a body found at his workplace.”

Haig nodded. “I read that in your report. About the Jane Doe.”

“She’s not a Jane Doe anymore.”

The inspector raised his eyebrows just a little, and lit another cigarillo, cupping the flame against the stiffening wind.

“Have your people got a time of death?” Oscar asked.

Haig shook out the match and tossed it over toward the river. “I invited you here to answer questions, not ask them.” Oscar felt the skin of his stomach grow tight and cold. “So you were the last to see Purden alive?”

“No,” Oscar replied. “That would have been his murderer.”

Haig nodded slowly, then looked at Kace. She reached into a pocket and handed Oscar a small sealed evidence bag. Inside was Oscar’s business card. A smooth crescent of blood had turned a coppery brown in the corner, leaching and spreading through the damp cardboard.

Kace said, “In your report you said that you returned to Purden’s place of residence and he was gone.” She watched Oscar, dark eyes sparkling. “So you still had questions to ask him?”

Oscar could feel heat radiate off Neve beside him. She began, “What are you suggesting?”

“Detective Kace is not suggesting anything,” Haig interrupted, his voice light. “Merely wondering. Although you are desperate for a conviction.”

Oscar shook his head. “I don’t think you know me very well, Inspector.”

“Oh, I think I do.” Haig drew smoke deep into his lungs. It puffed out as he spoke. “I know when you start something you want to keep going till it’s finished. With little regard for the people involved. No regard, some would say.”

“This isn’t my style.” Oscar gestured down at Purden’s body. “We both know whose style this is.”

Haig said nothing.

“And I found your little present,” Oscar said. “On my garage floor.”

Haig leaned back as an errant flashlight beam sliced over his face. His smile was dazzling white; his eyes were glacier cold. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He gestured.

Oscar handed the card back, and Kace slipped it into her pocket with a conjurer’s deftness. Haig turned to his people and clapped his hands cheerfully. “All right, let’s pack this up.”

Haig headed toward the stairs rising to the main road. Kace closed her notebook, smiled at Oscar, and headed off into the assembly of officers. Neve turned to Oscar.

“Not good,” she observed.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The storm broke. Rain smashed down on the car roof, and the windshield wipers slapped hard, failing to keep up. Oscar switched on the headlights and drove slowly, the downpour grinding the peak-hour traffic down to a crawl. He had to divert to a side street because tired uniformed police had blocked a road while firefighters sprayed foam into a burning car. In the street parallel, a construction site was a blaze of
spotlights behind a gauze fence—pile drivers and diggers rammed earth and air with steel and noise. A banner read T
HATCH
C
ONSTRUCTION
.

Ten minutes later, they were outside the former convent where Neve lived. The rain continued its rowdy dance on the roof and hood. She didn’t move to get out.

“You’ve ID’d the girl’s body?”

“I think so.”

“Where is it?”

“Kannis’s.”

Neve didn’t hide her disgust. “That sleaze.” After a long moment, she asked, “How?”

Oscar told her about Gillin’s external autopsy, the violent hysterectomy, the hairless bands around the dead girl’s forearms, the trip to Elverly, and the visit to the Roths.

“Paul Roth,” Neve said, frowning. “You think he killed his own stepdaughter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does Haig think you killed Lucas Purden?”

“I don’t know.”

She watched him, troubled. “If Haig had anything to do with Penny Roth’s death, if he’s tied up with Paul Roth, this case is dead already. Worse than dead. Dangerous.”

“They don’t know where the body is. I just need the coroner to authorize a DNA test of Carole Roth, and once Penny is formally ID’d I’ll find a way to search Roth’s house. There’ll be something there, always is.”

He felt rotten telling her another half-truth. If Roth was involved, he was smart enough to have already cleaned his house from basement to attic and torched any paper trail.

The rain started to ease.

Neve shifted in her seat, and said quietly, “Have you signed my transfer?”

“Yeah. It’s at home,” he said. It was in his pocket, unsigned.

“Tomorrow, then?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said. “Go in, get an early night. You’re probably exhausted after yesterday.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going home.”

Yet another lie.

He watched her run across the street through the drizzle. He knew he should pull the transfer request out right now, sign it, and give it to her. Get her well away from this investigation, from Haig. He just couldn’t picture the Barelies without her. She was good. She was nice. And while she was in the office, pounding away at the performance summary, he could stay out on the case with some tiny hope that he’d still have a job next week.

A few days. He’d talk her around.

Chapter
14

T
he pastries looked mummified. Oscar picked the one that felt least like wood, then squeezed chicory essence from a tube into the bottom of a foam cup and depressed the lever. A wheezy trickle of steaming water dribbled into the cup. He dropped a coin into an honesty box beside the dispenser; a man behind the counter gave him a fraternal nod. Across the cafeteria, two officers on night shift chewed automatically while they read newspapers. On the far wall was a rising arc of plaster patches, reminiscent of china wall ducks, where an officer had decided his dead brother could just stop following him around and emptied his service pistol. Two and a half years, and still the patches hadn’t been painted.

Oscar sat and ate. The tough pastry forced him to chew slowly, allowing him time to think.

Perhaps Haig had not personally killed Lucas Purden, but Oscar could imagine the inspector standing in the corner of a room, asking polite questions while another swung a hammer into the boy’s knuckles. Oscar found himself watching the cafeteria doorway for arrivals. He was in trouble.

The Industrial Relations floor was silent. Little puddles of light picked out the sharp edges of empty desks and the curves of chair backs. Neve had again left their desk covered with neat stacks of folders. He balanced the computer keyboard on top and filled out a Form Five, requesting a DNA sample from Carole Roth. He thought for a moment, then added Paul Roth’s name to the form and clicked Print. While the old machine in the center of the empty office warmed up, he logged on to Prophet and searched for “Roth, Paul.”

The system coughed, rallied, and spat out the unsatisfying answer
that Oscar had expected. Roth’s name was mentioned on dozens of files as defense counsel, but he had no criminal record. The only hint of besmirchment was a parking violation in 2006, left unpaid while he and Carole honeymooned in the Loire Valley. An appeal was made upon return, and all fines were paid.

Oscar exited Prophet and typed “Chaume, Anne” into the search engine and waited.

Anne Isabelle Chaume was the daughter and only child of hotelier Sidney Chaume, a man who made headlines in the early nineties when he married the much older Daphne Carter, widow and heiress to the Carter mining fortune. More headlines were made when Daphne died just two years later, succumbing to bone cancer that the press speculated Sidney Chaume must have known about. Sidney weathered the storm, comforted perhaps by his nine-figure net worth. When Sidney died five years ago, Anne inherited the entire Chaume Carter fortune, including Chislehurst, a five-acre property dominated by an imposing nineteenth-century manor regarded by many as the finest residence in the state, perched at the top of the Heights. During probate, Anne engaged the services of Paul Roth.

The search also brought up photographs of the beautiful Ms. Chaume at various gala events and fund-raisers; one photograph showed her looking almost luminescent in a bridal grown, smiling widely next to her groom, a handsome young man named Liam Moreley. Moreley had been due to inherit the Moreley yacht-building company from his father, but did not live to do so. Six years into his marriage to Anne Chaume, he contracted a parasitic infection while holidaying in Egypt and was unlucky enough to sustain organ damage that saw him fatally degenerate over the next few months. Oscar flicked through photos taken just weeks before Gray Wednesday of the funeral service at St. John’s Cathedral—Anne Chaume’s eyes were sparkling spots of aquamarine in a sea of black.