VC03 - Mortal Grace (9 page)

“I’m pregnant.” She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know what to do.”

Bonnie sat on the wall beside her. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” The girl’s lips trembled and her eyelids came up. “Tod thought maybe you could help.”

“Maybe I can. I’ve helped other girls in your position.”

The girl looked down uncomfortably at her cigarette. Silence rose out of her in a tightening spiral. Somewhere down the river a tugboat hooted.

“Tell me about yourself, Nell.”

“Same story as everyone else. Just trying to keep alive from moment to moment.”

“How old are you?”

“Almost sixteen.”

Bonnie wondered if that was a lie. It felt like one. “Do you have a family?”

“My family and me don’t talk.”

“Any other relatives at all?”

Nell stared at nothing, the way strangers in an elevator stare when they don’t want to look at one another.

“Where do you live?”

“Over there.” Nell nodded toward the Hudson, upstream. “The next dock. There’s a warehouse.”

Bonnie could see the outline of some kind of building, a dark unmoving mass against the sparkling blur of the water. “Are you alone?”

Nell didn’t answer.

“Are you with Tod?”

“Right now I don’t know who I’m with.” The hand with the cigarette reached to smooth down the back of her hair. “I’m in touch with a doctor.”

“An obstetrician?” Bonnie said.

Nell’s smile had a melancholy weight. “She needs two thousand dollars.”

“How soon?”

“Right away. Up front.”

“Does that cover prenatal care and delivery and follow-up?”

The eyebrows lowered. “It covers the abortion and twenty-four hours in the clinic.”

Sadness descended on Bonnie. She wanted to reach out and soothe the panic and pain in this child. “You don’t have to do that.”

The girl’s mouth moved at the corners as though she had just swallowed. “Don’t I?”

“There are programs—you can go away where it’s peaceful and have your baby.”

“And then what?”

“And then put it up for adoption.”

The girl glanced over. She was breathing in a slower and sharper way. “Church programs?”

“Some of them.”

“I’ve heard about those—they question you, make you feel guilty. And you don’t get paid if you place the baby through a church.” Nell shook her head vehemently. “I’m not going to go through that.”

“You don’t have to go through anything you don’t want to.”

The girl lobbed Bonnie a look that said,
What planet have you been living on?

A light rain had begun to fall, draining the colors from the lights on West Street.

Nell stood up. “I gotta go.”

Bonnie ransacked her mind for reassuring words. They weren’t there. “Nell, will you please hold off on any decisions? Don’t do anything till I have a chance to speak to you again.”

Nell was silent, neither agreeing nor refusing.

“How can I get in touch with you again?”

“You can’t,” Nell said. “You can’t get in touch with me again.”

Bonnie watched the girl in the tank top walk away down the dock.

That was my chance
, she thought,
and I missed it and now it could be too late.

ELEVEN

“I
GIVE TWO EVENINGS
a month to prostitute outreach,” Dr. Hillary St. Lawrence said. “The first and third Tuesdays.”

“What exactly do you do for the program?” Cardozo said.

The doctor’s expression was thoughtful. He took off his steel-rimmed bifocals and probed one of the temples through his brush-cut gray hair. “It’s mostly clinical work in the field. I take blood samples, smears, cultures, blood pressure—listen to hearts and lungs. Where it’s warranted, I’ll take a patient’s medical history. I might prescribe an antibiotic or mild antipsychotic. And naturally I distribute condoms and literature and advise on safer sex techniques.”

Cardozo noted that the antique table in the softly lit office was stacked with brightly printed pamphlets. One Chinese porcelain bowl brimmed with plain-wrapped condoms and another with individually wrapped sour balls and cough drops. On the wall above, two eighteenth-century cutaway views of human anatomy looked like hand-tinted maps of fantastic continents.

“Do you use the church van on these trips?”

“No, I use my own station wagon.”

“Have you ever driven the church van?”

“Never.”

Cardozo leaned forward from his chair to hand Dr. St. Lawrence three photos. “Do you recognize this person?”

The doctor moved a jade inkwell to one side and spread the glossies on his desk top. Narrow, pale gray eyes slowly scanned from left to right. Beneath the high-arched nose, thin colorless lips pulled down in a frown. “I can’t honestly say I do, except as a type. They’re a fairly common sort of prostitute nowadays, God only knows why.”

“Has Father Montgomery ever mentioned such a person to you?”

“Not by name.”

“In what context, then?”

Dr. St. Lawrence’s gaze flattened. “Look, Father Joe doesn’t confide his pastoral work to me and I don’t confide my medical work to him—or to the police. These prostitutes are my patients. I’m not about to discuss anything they’ve told me.”

“Do you ask them for the names of their contacts?”

“Never.”

“Do they ever volunteer the information?”

“That’s privileged. But if you’re implying that Father Montgomery’s friendship for any of these people goes beyond the purely caring, then you’re very much mistaken and I very much resent the way this discussion is heading.” The doctor slid back a French cuff and grimaced at a gold Rolex watch. “And I have a patient waiting.”

Cardozo closed his notebook and slid it back into his pocket. He rose to his feet. “Thank you for your impressions—and for your time.” As he was leaving, he turned to ask one last question. “Doctor, are you a specialist?”

A faint smile softened the doctor’s face. “Diseases of the middle intestine.”

“And you’ve never driven the church van in Central Park?”

The smile vanished. “Why would I do that?”

“Do you know of anyone who has?”

“Absolutely not.”

It was a little after one o’clock in the morning when Cardozo pulled his Honda to the west curb of Ninth Avenue. Across Fourteenth Street, where dozens of refrigerated trucks had triple- and quadruple-parked, flamboyantly dressed transvestite hookers strutted their wares. Out-of-state cars and a few taxis cruised,

Two hookers stood chatting in the light of a flood lamp outside a warehouse door. They both wore imitation leopard-skin minis and red vinyl boots.

As Cardozo approached, they both turned. One of the hookers slapped a hand on a saucily cocked hip. Her eyebrows arched, subtle as the snap of a burlesque queen’s G-string. She had red hair the size of a bushel basket and she wore a fringed cowboy vest.

“Treat you girls to a drink?” Cardozo showed his shield.

“Oh, shit.” The hooker dropped her cigarette on the pavement and stomped it out hard. “You busting us?”

“Not tonight. Word of honor. Where’s a good watering hole?”

“Forget the drinks. We’re on duty—right, bitch?”

The other hooker, a tall transvestite wearing an oversize sombrero, seemed disappointed. “Don’t you wish. It’s too fucking slow tonight.”

Cardozo handed Cowboy Vest two photos. “Ever seen a van like this in the neighborhood?”

She groaned. “I don’t believe it. The God Loves You van.”

“Tell me about the God Loves You van.”

The hookers traded looks. It was Cowboy Vest who finally spoke. “A sad old Japanese sardine can with teardrop windows and a carpet and throw pillows in the rear”—the eyebrow went up again—“just in case.”

Her co-worker tipped back her sombrero. “Don’t forget that inspirational motto painted on the door—something like God loves you and I love God and you love me and isn’t it all a cosmic groove.”

“When was the last time you saw this van?”

Sombrero shrugged. “Two, three months ago.”

“I don’t suppose you happened to get the license number? Or notice what state the license plate was from?”

“Honey, we’re not being paid by the Bureau of Parking Violations.”

“Who drives this van?”

The hookers rolled their eyes. Sombrero stepped closer to Cardozo. Under the drugstore cologne, she smelled like an athlete who needed a shower. “Would you believe—a priest?”

Cardozo showed them blowups of the two priests from the videocassette.

Sombrero frowned at the grainy enlargements. She tapped a green cathedral-window fingernail on Father Joe Montgomery’s face. “Might be this guy.”

Cowboy Vest snatched the photos. “You’re crazy, bitch. It ain’t neither one of ʼem.”

“I’ve seen that creep cruising.”

Cowboy Vest coughed out a lungful of smoke. “So have I, but he ain’t the creep that says we should stop using rubbers and give up hooking. Fat chance in
this
economy.”

“How can you be sure he’s a priest?” Cardozo said. “Does he wear a collar?”

“He doesn’t need to.” Cowboy Vest blew out a wriggling jet of smoke. “This business, you get so you can smell a priest on the prowl.”

“Anyone happen to know this priest’s name?”

Sombrero snorted. “Down here no one has a name. Least not a real one.”

Cardozo took out three photos of the hooker in the striped spandex leotard.

“Shit. I do believe…” Sombrero strolled to the curb and angled one of the photos to the streetlight. She let out a long exhalation. “It is, it is, it is—our own little Jonquil!”

“No
way
, bitch.” Cowboy Vest shook her head with an energy that sent shock waves through her hairdo. “Jonquil may have love handles, but not wider than her hips.”

Sombrero hooted. “Feed my pink kitty cat, girl. Jonquil do got love handles wider than a linebacker’s shoulders.”

“Well, even if she did, she’d never let them show like this.”

“Jonquil would show anything she’s got if there was a rat’s chance of peddling it.”

“Mind telling me who Jonquil is?” Cardozo said.

“Island trash. Hawaii.” Cowboy Vest handed back the photos. “Haven’t seen her around in a few weeks.”

“A few months is more like it.” Sombrero sighed. “I heard she won some money on the lottery and flew her ass to Miami.”

Cowboy Vest let out a mean, crack-fueled cackle. “Her ass’ll be back. Trust me.”

Cardozo opened his wallet and took out two twenty-dollar bills and two business cards. Bribes to informants were not deductible as a business expense: they came out of his own pocket. “If Jonquil happens to turn up, would you ask her to get in touch with me?”

TWELVE

A
T 7:55 A.M. CARDOZO
steered his Honda down the alley beside the precinct building. He saw he had a choice of parking spots: one at the end of the alley, or one halfway back, under the fire escape.

He chose halfway back—it was visible from the street. Though teenage thieves had become brazen about breaking into the cars, they still preferred not to be seen doing it.

He collected his newspapers from the front seat—all four metropolitan dailies—and made sure his windows were up and his doors locked. As he came around to the front steps he was irked to see that the green globe was still busted.

Cops were streaming through the lobby. One shift was ending and another beginning. Voices shouted, radios staticked, telephones jangled. Cardozo gave a few shouts, got a few, slapped a few backs, got slapped, joined the stream heading upstairs.

The noise level was lower in the squad room. Detectives were the gents of the NYPD: they didn’t shout, they didn’t roughhouse on company time. A group was clustered around the coffeemakers, debating the fine points of last night’s ball game.

Cardozo crossed to Ellie’s desk. “Anything happening?”

“Robbery in progress.” She was dressed, as usual, as though she had a very important tea party to get to. Pale blue today. “The Gap, over on Lexington. Female Caucasian and two male Hispanics seen breaking in.”

“What kind of retards would break into a place on a main thoroughfare in broad daylight?”

Greg Monteleone butted in. “Criminals are getting dumb. It’s the fault of the fucked-up school system.”

“They are dumber,” Ellie said, “and it’s not funny. A lot more people are getting killed than need to.”

Cardozo left Ellie and Greg to their discussion. He frowned when he saw the fresh paper on his desk: departmental forms, the daily dose of directives from the commissioner, a bunch of updates on ongoing homicide investigations. He cleared a space, dumped his newspapers, and saw that the coffee crowd had thinned. He went to get himself a cup.

Three cups later, he was ready to begin reading.

There was nothing in the
New York Times
about Ms. Basket Case. That was to be expected. The
Times
was more apt to cover a homicide in a former Soviet republic than a shooting on their own street.

Nothing in the
Daily News.
He frowned. He knew they were short of writers, but it seemed odd. No murders at all. There’d been ten killings in town since the last edition, but you’d never know it from these guys.

Nothing in the
New York Post
either—that surprised him. Grotesque killings tended to be the
Post
’s meat—unless they were going vegetarian on their readers.

On page seven of
New York Newsday
he saw the headline
WOMAN FOUND DEAD
. A real nongrabber. Who was writing their copy, the cardinal?

He read as far as the third paragraph and then realization hit like a punch on the side of the head: it was his case—the girl in the basket. He spread
Newsday
flat, and read the article again, slowly this time.

According to the report, a woman—probably a prostitute, probably black—had been found dead in a ravine in Central Park. The body, showing signs of drug abuse and s/m, had been covered with leaves.

Period. End of report.

He could feel a vein pumping up in his temple. The cup of coffee on his desk was half empty. He took another swallow, trying to hold his annoyance in check. The word
black
repeated in his mind like a bent blade clacking against an electric fan casing.