And that wasnt the only thing going his way. Courtesy of it being a Sunday morning, the roads and highway were bowling-alley empty, and his unmarked made excellent time in from the burbsso his coffee was still pipin hot as he piloted himself down into the warehouse district, pulling rolling stops at the red lights.
The lineup of squad cars announced the location where the body had been found even better than the yellow warning tape that had been wound around everywhere like ribbon on some fucked-up Christmas present. With a curse, he parked parallel to the brick wall of the alley and got out, sipping and walking his way over to the knot of grim-looking blue unis.
Hey, Detective.
Sup, Detective.
Yo, Detective.
He nodded at the boys. Mornin all. How we doing?
We didnt touch her. Rodriguez nodded over to the Dumpster. Shes in there and shes had initial photographs taken by Jones. Coroner and the CSI types are on the way. Sos the man-sogonist.
Ah, yes, their faithful photog. Thanks.
Wheres your new partner?
Coming.
He ready for this?
Well see. No doubt this grungy alley was plenty familiar with people tossing their cookies. So if the greenhorn lost his proverbial lunch, sall good.
José ducked under the tape and walked over to the Dumpster. As always when he approached a body, he found his sense of hearing grew almost unbearably acute: The soft chatter of the men behind him, the sound of the soles of his shoes on the asphalt, the whistling breeze off the river . . . everything was too loud, like the volume of the whole damn world was cranked up into the red zone.
And of course, the irony was that the purpose of his being here, on this morning, in this alley . . . the purpose of all the cars and the men and the tape . . . was perfectly silent.
José gripped his Styrofoam cup as he peered over the rusted lip of the bin. Her hand was the first thing he saw, a pale lineup of fingers with nails that were split and had something brown under them.
Shed been a fighter, whoever she was.
As he stood over yet another dead girl, he wished like hell his job would go through a slow month or week . . . or for shits sake, even a night. Hell, a career slump was what he was really gunning for: When you were in his line of work, it was hard to take satisfaction in what you did. Even if you solved a case, someone was still burying a loved one.
The cop next to him sounded like he was on the business end of a bullhorn: You want me to open the other half?
José almost told the guy to pipe down, but chances were good he was talking like he was in a library. Yeah. Thanks.
The officer used a nightstick to push the lid up far enough for the light to stream in, but the guy didnt look inside. He just stood there like one of those stiffs in front of Buckingham Palace, staring out across the alley while focusing on nothing.
As José rose up onto the balls of his feet and got a look, he didnt blame the uni for his reticence.
Lying in a bed of metal curls, the female was naked, her gray, mottled skin strangely luminous in the dawns diffused light. Going by her face and body, she looked to be in her late teens, early twenties. Caucasian. Hair had been cut off at the roots, so close in places that the scalp was lacerated. Eyes . . . had been removed from their sockets.
José took a pen out of his pocket, stretched downward, and carefully pushed her stiff lips apart. No teethnot a one left in the ragged gums.
Moving to the right, he upped one of her hands so he could see the underside of the fingertips. Sheered clean off.
And the defacement didnt end at the head and hands. . . . There were gouges in her flesh, one at the top of her thigh, another down her upper arm, and two on the insides of her wrists.
Cursing under his breath, he was certain shed been dumped here. Not enough privacy to do this kind of workthis shit required time and tools . . . and restraints to keep her put.
What do we have, Detective? his new partner said from behind him.
José glanced over his shoulder at Thomas DelVecchio, Jr. Have you had breakfast yet?
No.
Good.
He stepped back so Veck could have a look. As the guy was taller by nearly six inches, he didnt have to arch up to see in; all he did was tilt at the hips. And then he just stared. No lurching over to the wall and throwing up. No gasping. No real change in expression, either.
The body was dumped here, Veck said. Had to be.
Her.
Veck looked over, his dark blue eyes smart and unfazed. Im sorry?
She was dumped here. Thats a person. Not a thing, DelVecchio.
Right. Sorry. She. The guy leaned in again. I think weve got ourselves a trophy keeper.
Maybe.
Dark brows shot up. Theres a lot missing . . . on her.
You watch CNN lately? José wiped his pen on a tissue.
I dont have time for TV.
Eleven women have been found like this in the past year. Chicago, Cleveland and Philly.
Shiiiiiit. Veck popped a piece of gum in his mouth and chewed hard. So youre wondering if this is the beginning for us?
As the guy ground his molars, José rubbed his eyes against memories that bubbled up. When did you quit?
Veck cleared his throat. Smoking? Bout a month ago.
Hows it going?
Sucks ass.
Ill bet.
José put his hands on his hips and refocused. How the hell were they going to find out who this girl was? There were a countless number of missing young women in the state of New Yorkand that was assuming the killer hadnt done this in Vermont or Massachusetts or Connecticut and driven her here.
One thing was for sure: Hed be damned if some motherfucker was going to start picking off Caldies girls. Wasnt going to happen on his watch.
As he turned away, he clapped his partner on the shoulder. I give you ten days, buddy.
Till what.
Till youre back in the saddle with the Marlboro Man.
Dont underestimate my willpower, Detective.
Dont underestimate what youre going to feel like when you go home and try to sleep tonight.
I dont sleep much, anyway.
This job aint gonna help.
At that moment, the photographer arrived with her click-click, flash-flash, and her bad attitude.
José nodded in the opposite direction. Lets back off and let her do her thing.
Veck glanced over and his eyes popped as he got glared at but good. The fuck-off reception was no doubt a news flash for the guyVeck was one of those types women gravitated to, as the last two weeks had proven: Down at HQ, the females were all over him.
Come on, DelVecchio, lets start casing this joint.
Roger that, Detective.
Ordinarily, José might have had the guy call him de la Cruz, but none of his new partners had lasted much longer than a month, so what was the point. José was out of the question, of courseonly one person had called him that on the job, and that bastard had disappeared three years ago.
It took about an hour for him and Veck to nose around and learn absolutely nothing material. There were no security cameras on the outsides of the buildings and no witnesses who had come forward, but the CSI guys were going to crawl all around with their headgear and their little plastic baggies and their tweezers. Maybe something would turn up.
The coroner showed at nine and did his thing, and the body was cleared for removal another hour or so after that. And when folks needed a hand with the body, José was surprised to find that Veck snapped on a pair of latex specials and jumped right in that Dumpster.
Just before the coroner took off with her, José asked about the time of death and was told about noontime the day before.
Great, he thought as the cars and vans started to pull out. Nearly twenty-four hours dead before they found her. She could well have been driven in from out of state.
Database time, he said to Veck.
Im on it.
As the guy turned away and headed for a motorcycle, José called out, Gum is not a food group.
Veck stopped and glanced over his shoulder. Are you asking me for breakfast, Detective.
Just dont want you passing out on the job. It would embarrass you and give me another body to step over.
Youre all heart, Detective.
Maybe he used to be. Now he was just hungry himself and he didnt feel like eating alone. Ill meet you at the twenty-four in five.
Twenty-four?
Thats right; he wasnt from here. Riverside Diner on Eighth Street. Open twenty-four hours a day.
Got it. The guy put on a black helmet and swung a leg over some kind of contraption that was mostly engine. Im buying.
Suit yourself.
Veck slammed the kick start down and juiced the motor. I always do, Detective. Always.
As he tore off, he left awake of testosterone in the alley, and José felt like a middle-aged minivanner in comparison as he schlepped over to his oatmeal-colored unmarked. Sliding behind the wheel, he put his nearly empty and totally cold Dunkin Donuts fister into the cup holder and looked past the tape to that Dumpster.
Nabbing his cell phone out of his suit jacket, he dialed into HQ. Hey, its de la Cruz. Can you patch me over to Mary Ellen? The wait was less than a minute. M.E., how you be? Good . . . good. Listen, I want to hear the call that came in about the body over by the Commodore. Yup. Surejust play it back. Thanksand take your time.
José shoved the key into the slot at the steering wheel. Great, thanks, M.E.
He took a deep breath and cranked the engine over
Yeah, Id like to rahport a dead bahdy. Nah, Im not giving my name. Its in a Dumpstah in an alley off Tenth Street, two blocks ova from th Commahdore. Looks to be a Caucasian female, late teens, early twenties . . . Nah, Im not giving my name. . . . Hey, how bout you get down the address and stahp worrying bout me. . . .
José gripped his phone and started to shake all over.
The South Boston accent was so clear and so familiar it was like time had gotten into a car wreck and whiplashed backward.
Detective? You want to hear it again? he heard Mary Ellen say in his ear.
Closing his eyes, he croaked out, Yes, please . . .
When the recording was finished, he listened to himself thank Mary Ellen and felt his thumb hit the end button to terminate the call.
Sure as water down a sink drain, he was sucked into a nightmare from about two years ago . . . when hed walked into a shitty, run-down apartment that was full of empty Lagavulin bottles and pizza boxes. He remembered his hand reaching out to a closed bathroom door, the damn thing quaking from palm to fingertips.
Hed been convinced he was going to find a dead body on the other side. Hanging from the showerhead by a belt . . . or maybe lying in the tub soaking in blood instead of bubble bath.
Butch ONeal had made hard living as much of a professional pursuit as his job in the homicide department. Hed been a late-night drinker, and not just a relationship-phobe, but completely incapable of forming attachments.
Except he and José had been tight. As tight as Butch had ever gotten with anyone.
No suicide, though. No body. Nothing. One night hed been around; the next . . . gone.
For the first month or two, José had expected to hear somethingeither from the guy himself or because a corpse with a busted nose and a badly capped front tooth turned up somewhere.
Days had slid into weeks, however, and in turn had dumped into seasons of the year. And he supposed he became something like a doctor who had a terminal disease: He finally knew firsthand how the families of missing persons felt. And God, that dreaded, cold stretch of Not Knowing was nothing hed ever expected to wander down . . . but with his old partners disappearance, he didnt just walk it; he bought a lot, put up a house, and moved the fuck in.
Now, though, after hed given up all hope, after he no longer woke up in the middle of the night with the wonders . . . now this recording.
Sure, millions of people had Southie accents. But ONeal had had a telltale hoarseness in his voice that couldnt be replicated.
Abruptly, José didnt feel like going to the twenty-four, and he didnt want anything to eat. But he put his unmarked in drive and hit the gas.
The moment hed looked into the Dumpster and seen those missing eyes and that dental job, hed known that he was going in search of a serial killer. But he couldnt have guessed hed be on another search.
Time to find Butch ONeal.
If he could.
SIXTEEN
Done week later, Manny woke up in his own bed with a stinger of a hangover. The good news was that at least this headache could be explained: When hed come home, hed hit the Lag like a punching bag and it had done its job, smacking him back and knocking him flat on his ass.
The first thing he did was reach over and get his phone. With blurry eyes, he called the vets cell. The pair of them had a little early-morning ritual going, and he thanked God that the guy was also an insomniac.
The vet answered on the second ring. Hello?
Hows my girl? The pause told him everything he had to know. That bad?
Well, her vitals remain good, and she remains as comfortable as she can be in her suspension, but Im worried about the foundering. Well see.
Keep me posted.
Always.
At that point, hanging up was the only thing he could do. The conversation was over, and it wasnt like he was a shoot-the-shit kind of guyalthough even if he had been, chitchat wasnt going to get him what he wanted, which was a healthy fucking horse.
Before his alarm went off at six thirty and put paid on the shot-through-the-head routine, he slapped his radio clock into permasilence and thought, Workout. Coffee. Back to the hospital.
Wait. Coffee, workout, hospital.
He definitely needed caffeine first. He wasnt fit to run or lift weights in this conditionand shouldnt be operating heavy machinery like an elevator, either.
As he shifted his feet to the floor and went vertical, his head had a heartbeat of its own, but he revolted against the idea that maybe, just maybe, the pain wasnt about the liquor: He was not sick, and he wasnt cooking up a brain tumoralthough if he was, hed still go in to St. Francis. It was in his nature. Hell, when hed been young, hed fought to go to school when he was illeven when hed had the chicken pox and had looked like a connect-the-dots canvas, hed insisted on heading for the bus.
His mother had won that particular one. And bitched that he was just like his father.
Not a compliment, and something hed heard all his lifealso something that didnt mean shit because hed never met the guy. All he had was a faded picture that was the only thing hed ever put in a frame
Why the hell was he thinking about that this morning?
Coffee was Starbucks Breakfast Blend. Workout clothes went on while it was brewing, and two mugs were downed over the sink as he watched the superearly traffic snake around the Northways curves in the dim light of dawn. The last thing he did was grab his iPod and put it in his ears. He was not a chatter to begin with, but Lord help some chipper chick with a motormouth today.
Downstairs in the workout room, the place was fairly empty, which was a huge relief, but not something that was going to last. Hopping on the treadmill closest to the door, he turned off the CNBC newscast on the overhead TV and got huffing.
Judas Priest carried his feet, and his mind unplugged, and his stiff, aching body got what it needed. All things considered, he was better than he had been coming out of the previous weekend. The headaches were still hanging in, but he was keeping up with his work and patient load, and functioning all right.
It made him wonder, though. Right before Jane had hit that tree, shed had headaches, too. So if theyd been able to do an autopsy on the body, would they have found an aneurysm? Then again, what were the chances of the two of them both having one within
Why did you do it, Jane? Why fake your death?
I dont have time to explain now. Please. I know this is asking a lot. But theres a patient who needs you, desperately, and Ive been looking for you for over an hour, so Im out of time
Fuck Manny quickly popped his feet off onto the side gunwales and gritted his teeth against the agony. Draping his upper body over the machines instrument panel, he breathed slow and steadyor as much as someone whod been running a six-minute-mile pace could.
Over the last seven days, hed learned through trial and error that when the pain struck, the best call was to blank out his mind and focus on nothing at all. And the fact that the simple cognitive trick worked was reassuring on the whole aneurysm front: If something was going to blow a hole in the wall of a cerebral artery, aint no yoga-two-part-breath shit going to make a difference.
There was a pattern, however. The onset seemed to follow thoughts either about Jane . . . or that wet dream he kept having.
Fucking hell, hed had enough orgasms in his sleep to lame out even his libido. And, sick bastard that he was, the near-guarantee of being back with that female in his fantasies made him look forward to hitting the pillow for the first time in his life.
Although he couldnt explain why certain cognitions would bring on the headaches, the good news was that he was getting better. Each day after that bizarre black hole of a weekend, he felt a bit more like himself.
When there was little but a dull ache remaining, Manny got back on the treadmill and finished the workout. On his way to the exit, he nodded to the early-morning stragglers whod come in, but took off before anyone could Oh-my-God-are-you-okay him if theyd seen him take his breather.
Up in his place, he showered, changed into clean scrubs and his white jacket, and then grabbed his briefcase and hit the elevators. To beat the traffic, he took the surface roads through the city. The Northway was invariably jammed this time of day, and he made great time while he listened to old-school My Chemical Romance.
Im Not Okay was a tune he couldnt get enough of for some reason.
As he turned into the St. Francis Hospital complex, dawns early light had yet to break through fully, which suggested they were going to have clouds. Not that it mattered to him. Once he was inside the belly of the beast, short of a tornado, which had never happened in Caldwell, the weather didnt affect him in the slightest. Hell, a lot of days, he came to work when it was dark and left when it was darkbut hed never felt like he was missing out on life just because he wasnt all Ive seen sunshine, Ive seen rain. . . .
Funny. He felt out of the loop now, though.
Hed come here from Yale Medical School after his surgical residency, and hed meant to go on to Boston, or Manhattan, or Chicago. Instead, hed made his mark here, and now it was over ten years later and he was still where hed started. Granted, he was at the top of the heap, so to speak, and hed saved and improved lives, and hed taught the next generation of surgeons.
The trouble was, as he went down the ramp into the parking garage, all that seemed hollow, somehow.
He was forty-five years old, with at least half of his useful life in the bin, and what did he have to show for it? A condo full of Nike shit and a job that had taken over all his nooks and crannies. No wife. No kids. Christmases and New Years and Fourths of July were spent at the hospitalwith his mother finding her own way for the holidays and no doubt pining for grandchildren shed better not be holding her breath for.
Christ, how many random women had he fucked over the years? Hundreds. Had to be.
His mothers voice shot through his head: Youre just like your father.
Too true. His dad had also been a surgeon. With a wandering streak.
It was actually why Manny had picked Caldwell. His mother had been here at St. Francis as an ICU nurse, working to put him through his years and years of schooling. And when hed graduated from med school? Instead of pride, there had been distance and reserve in her face.... The closer hed become to what his father had been, the more often shed gotten that faraway look in her eye. His idea had been that if they were in the same city, theyd start relating or some shit. Hadnt worked out that way, though.
But she was okay. She was down in Florida now in a house on a golf course that hed paid for, playing rounds of scramble with ladies her age, having dinner with the bridge brigade and arguing over who snubbed who on the party circuit. He was more than happy to support her, and that was the extent of their relationship.
Dads was in a grave in Pine Grove Cemetery. Hed died in 1983 in a car accident.
Dangerous things, cars.
Parking the Porsche, he got out and took the stairs instead of the elevators for the exercise; then he used the pedestrian walkway to enter the hospital on the third floor. As he passed by doctors and nurses and staff, he just nodded at them and kept going. Usually, he went to his office first, but no matter what he told his feet to do, that was not where he ended up today.
He was heading for the recovery suites.
He told himself it was to check on patients, but that was a lie. And as his head became fuzzier and fuzzier, he studiously ignored the fog. Hell, it was better than the painand he was probably just hypoglycemic from working out and not eating anything afterward.
Patient . . . he was looking for his patient. . . . No name. He had no name, but he knew the room.
As he came up to the suite closest to the fire escape at the end of the hall, a flush shot through his body and he found himself making sure his white coat was hanging smoothly from his shoulders and then doing a hand-pass through his hair to neaten it up.
Clearing his throat, he braced himself, stepped inside, and
The eighty-year-old man in the bed was asleep, but not at rest, tubes going in and out of him like he was a car in the process of being jump-started.
Dull pain thumped in Mannys head as he stood there staring at the guy.
Dr. Manello?
Goldbergs voice from behind him was a relief, because it gave him something concrete to grab onto . . . the lip of the pool, so to speak.
He turned around. Hey. Good morning.
The guys brows popped and then he frowned. Ah . . . what are you doing here?
What do you think. Checking on a patient. Jesus, maybe everyone was losing their minds.
I thought you were going to take a week off.
Excuse me?
Thats . . . ah . . . thats what you told me when you left this morning. After we . . . found you in here.
What are you talking about? But then Manny waved a hand in dismissal. Listen, let me get some breakfast first
Its dinnertime, Dr. Manello. Six oclock at night? You left here twelve hours ago.
The flush that had heated him up whirlpooled out of him and was instantly replaced by a cold wash of something he never, ever felt.
Icy fear bowled him over and sent his pins spinning.
The awkward silence that followed was broken by the hustle and bustle out in the corridor, people rushing by in soft-soled shoes, hurrying to patients or rolling bins of laundry along or taking meals . . . dinner, natch . . . from room to room.
Im . . . going to go home now, Manny said.
His voice was still as strong as ever, but the expression on his colleagues face revealed the truth in and around him: No matter what he told himself about feeling better, he was not what he once had been. He looked the same. He sounded the same. He walked the same.
He even tried to convince himself he was the same.
But something had changed that weekend, and he feared that there was no going back from it.
Would you like someone to drive you? Goldberg asked tentatively.
No. Im fine.
It took all the pride he had not to start running as he turned to leave: By force of will, he kicked back his head and straightened his spine and put one foot calmly in front of the other.
Oddly, as he went out the way hed come in, he thought of his old surgery professor . . . the one whod been retired by the school admin when hed turned seventy. Manny had been a second-year med student at the time.
Dr. Theodore Benedict Standford III.
The guy had been a straight-up hard-ass prick in class, the kind of fucker who liked it best when the students gave the wrong answer, because it provided him with an opportunity to dress people down. When the school had announced his departure at the end of the year, Manny and his classmates had thrown a going-away party for the sorry bastard, all of them getting drunk in celebration that they were the last generation to be subjected to his bullshit.
Manny had been working as a custodian at the school that summer for cash, and hed been mopping the hallway when the last of the movers had taken the final boxes from Standfords office . . . and then the old man himself had turned the corner and wing-tipped it out for the last time.
Hed left with his head high, walking down the marble stairs and leaving through the majestic front entrance with his chin up.
Manny had laughed at the arrogance of the man, undying even in the face of age and obsolescence.
Now, walking that same way, he wondered if that had been true.
More likely, Standford had felt as Manny did now.
Discarded.
SEVENTEEN
Jane heard the tearing sound all the way down in the training centers office. The ripping woke her up, yanking her head off the pillow of her forearms and snapping her spine straight from its curl over the desk.
Ripping . . . and flapping . . .
At first, she thought it was a gust of wind, but then her brain clicked on. No windows here underground. And it would take a damn thunderstorm to create that much of a disturbance.
Bolting up from the chair and scrambling around the desk, she hit the corridor outside in a run as she gunned for Paynes room. All doors were open for precisely this reason: She had only one patient, and although Payne was mostly quiet, if something happened
What the hell was all that noise? There was grunting, too
Jane skidded around the doorjamb of the recovery room and just about screamed. Oh, God . . . the blood.
Payne! She rushed for the bed.
Vs twin was going wild, her arms flailing around, her fingers clawing at the sheets and also at herself, her sharp nails biting into the skin of her upper arms and shoulders and collarbones.
I cant feel it! the female yelled, her fangs flashing, her eyes so wide there was white all around them. I cant feel anything!
Jane lunged forward and grabbed one of those arms, but her grip slipped the instant contact was made, snapping off all those slick scratches. Payne! Stop it!
As Jane fought to still her patient, bright red blood spackled her face and white coat.
Payne! If this kept up, those wounds were going to be deep enough to show bone. Stop
I cant feel it!
The Bic pen appeared in Paynes hand from out of nowhereexcept, no, it wasnt magical. . . . The thing was Janes, the one she kept in the side pocket of her white coat. The instant she saw it, all the furious flapping morphed into a surreal slow-mo as Paynes hand lifted up.
Her stabbing swipe was so strong and sure that there was no stopping it.
The sharp point pierced through the females heart, dead on, and her torso jerked upward, a death gasp shooting in through her open mouth.
Jane screamed, Noooooo
Janewake up!
The sound of Vishouss voice made no sense. Except then she opened her eyes . . . to complete darkness. The clinic and the blood and Paynes hoarse breathing were replaced by a black visual shroud that
Candles flared to life, and the first thing she saw properly was Vishouss hard face. He was right beside her, even though they hadnt gone to bed at the same time.
Jane, it was only a dream. . . .
Im okay, she blurted, shoving her hair out of her face. Im . . .
While she propped herself up on her arms and panted, she wasnt sure what was dream and what was real. Especially given that Vishous was next to her. Not only had they not been going to bed together; they hadnt been waking up together either. She assumed he was sleeping down in his forge, but maybe that hadnt been the case.
She hoped it hadnt.
Jane . . .
In the dim quiet, she heard in the word all the sadness that V never would have let out in any other situation. And she felt the same way. The days without them talking much, the stress of Paynes recovery, the distance . . . the goddamn distance . . . it was so damned sad.