Atmosphere (5 page)

"The tunnel led to an air duct in the R line terminal, on Broadway and 4th—about four hundred yards from the hole in the courtyard. The kid's body was inside the duct, dead and as naked as day, a few feet from where a vent had been popped out in a bathroom wall. We're pretty sure the bald guy escaped through it."

"He got away?"

"Yep."

"Any witnesses?"

There was a delay on Hector's end of the phone, Frank heard him say 'thank you' to someone at his end. "No. Nothing yet."

Frank felt staggered. The whole scenario—from the moment he stepped into the blood till now—was becoming a more and more unbelievable story by the minute—one which he wouldn't have bought for a second had he not been there to see it himself. "What in God's name is going on?" he asked, a fistful of sheets bunched in his free hand.

"I have no idea."

"And what is it all?"

"Damned if I can even offer a guess."

Pausing, he asked, "How wide was it?"

"What? The tunnel? Big enough for that bald goon to fit through—but barely."

"Then how did he drag the body through with him?
  

"You saw him. He was a big guy. He made it fit."

"It must've been a mess."
  

"Yep. And I think you were most likely right when you said the body may have provided a cushion to baldie's fall. The kid's arms and legs were broken. Neck too."

The image of it made Frank's stomach purl with nausea. A young boy waking up innocently one day to have no life just hours later, his body mangled like a piece of highway carnage and left for the rats to feed on.
 

But this terrifying vision in his mind's eye was secondary to the knowledge that some wicked psychopath was still walking the streets with blood on his hands, and that no immediate solution existed at the moment for Frank to sever the maniac's bond with society. Frank realized at this very moment that he would find no rest, no peace of mind today or any other day, until the guy was caught.

But with a terrible situation such as this, much more existed for Frank than just his commitment to society. Once a scenario rendered itself within his reach, an ever compelling need to grasp it demanded he do so, draw himself close and refuse to surrender hold until he worked his way through to the very limit of its span.
 
It consumed him, became an immediate obsession, and ultimately an art. Perhaps this compulsory desire surfaced through a shifting of chemical balances, perhaps a simple psychological tendency drove him. Regardless, it inspired his very existence.

Given the current circumstances, the settling down period he anticipated now that the Carey Lindsay case had been put to rest would come to pass. Every intricate facet of this mystery would be just as it was during the brutal weeks he sweated the perplexities of her murder.

Life consuming.

He had nearly drove himself to hallucination speculating on the events leading to the poor girl's dying moments, time and time again asking himself the same unanswerable questions: How had she been seduced by her brother? Had she trusted him, agreed to play his game? Or was she snatched against her will?

Regardless, the facts were alarming. The sixteen year-old had been raped and sodomized repeatedly during the last moments of her life, beaten and bloodied beyond recognition. When the police found her, her entire body bore a mottling of angry blue blotches and bruises, had been swathed in blood. She had no broken bones, but virtually every inch of skin, every muscle and every tendon had sustained damage. Frank remembered seeing the body for the first time, practically folded in half like a piece of paper and stuffed in a large overnight bag, hidden away in a closet in the Park Avenue apartment.

"Frank?"

"Yeah?"

"You still with me?"

"Hect...I'm sorry. I'm still tired." He smoothed the sheets with his hand, thinking about how torturous Carey Lindsay's moments must have been prior to her murder. The images of death,
her
death, seemed so surrealistic, and impossible.
Dear God, how terrible it must have been...

"When you get your old self out of bed, I'd like for you come in and give a statement. Outside of the cabby, you're our only real witness, and it's important I see you, preferably sometime today."

This
was the last thing Frank expected on his day off, but strangely enough, the first thing he wanted now. "Hect...the first kid. Any I.D. on him? Connections to the second kid?"

Once again Hector blew into the phone. It hurt Frank's ear and he had to pull away for a second. "Frank, I can't have you playing detective right now."

"Why not?"

"You're a witness, and frankly I can't waste any more time. I need to get your statement. Afterwards, we'll talk. I promise."

Frank licked his lips. Frustration. The detective in him wanted all the facts, wanted to start piecing the clues together right away, pronto. "Okay, I'm a witness," he said, rolling his eyes. "But remember, I'm a damn nosy one."

Frank agreed to meet Hector at the 13th at four o'clock. After hanging up, he crawled from bed and spent a half-hour in the bathroom, self-commiserating towards the nearly unfamiliar face watching him from the mirror as he shaved. Fifty-three years old. Jesus, it seemed just yesterday that Jaimie was born, and that was twenty years ago. Five years had already passed since Diane left him. Hard to believe.

That had been real hard on him. After twenty-eight years of marriage, Diane—who had spent most of her time watching her diet and getting fit at the Midtown Health Club—selfishly felt that she had aged much more gracefully than he, and came to the rash decision that a thirty year old 'kid' would make a much better lover than frigid old Frank Ballaro.

It was the shocker of his life. He had never suspected for one brief moment that she had been having an affair. She simply picked up and left with a few of her things, leaving only a 'dear John' letter behind to Frank and Jaimie.

As unsettling an experience it was, Frank refused to put all the blame on her for leaving. He had spent his whole life trying to be the finest detective New York City had to offer, neglecting their marriage—and their sex life. Although the manner in which Diane ended things was clearly unacceptable, he still wished to this day he had made an effort to divide his duties in life, half for Diane, half for the NYPD. Perhaps she still would've been around if he had, regardless of his inability to perform regularly.
 

He showered, got dressed in a pair of khaki pants, a navy cotton sweater, and sneakers. He went to the kitchen where Jaimie sat studying, a variety of textbooks and papers fanned out on the table before her.

The one good thing that had come out of Diane's departure was the growth of his relationship with Jaimie. She had been fourteen at the time, certainly old enough to understand what had happened. They both read the letter, holding each other for comfort upon finishing. Tears of resentment sprang from their eyes, but somehow the sadness strengthened the bond between them, became a pledge of security that would last throughout the subsequent five years. Frank wouldn't trade anything in the world—even Diane's return—in exchange for the relationship he now had with Jaimie. Some things were sacred, and this was one of them.

"Good morning."

Jaimie smiled. "Good
afternoon
. Can't believe you out-slept me today. Rough night Frank?"

Frank reached into the refrigerator, grabbed a corn muffin and a can of coke. "You could say that. And please call me dad." He sat at the three-seat rectangular table flanking the cut-out wall in the small kitchen. The smallest room in the two-bedroom apartment, it barely allowed enough standing room for both of them, making things difficult when they decided to prepare a rare dinner together.

"What are you studying?"

Jaimie placed her pen in the crook of the open textbook, blew up a puff of air that sent her bangs against her forehead. "I have an exam in climatology."

"Takes a lot of studying to tell the weather, huh?"

"More than I ever expected." Jaimie rubbed her eyes. "Oh, you got a call earlier this morning, from Neil. He said it was important, but I didn't want to wake you since I knew you were off."

Frank let out an exasperated sigh. Already his partner was starting in. What the hell was so important that he felt the need to call him on his first day off? Frank thought he had made himself very clear, reiterating throughout the entire investigation how he had planned to spend a few days off away from the precinct when the investigation came to a close. And now that he finally made it—although there were times when he thought he wouldn't—here was Neil Connor calling first thing. "Thanks hon, you did the right thing."

Jaimie picked up the pen, put the capped end in her mouth, then stood and grabbed a bag of pretzels from the cabinet above the sink. She wore a pair of faded Levi's and a tie-dye tee shirt, reminding Frank a bit of the hippies that gave him the business on the street corner in Greenwich Village back in '68. Damn thing still haunted him. The only difference was that she had no joint in her mouth. Good thing, too. Frank would freak.

"So why are all these people calling you on your day off?"

He took a bite of the muffin, washed it down with half the Coke. "Something came up. I have some work to do this afternoon."

She stuck a pretzel in her mouth. "What is it now? I
thought
you were taking a few days off."

"I thought so too." He paused, thinking a moment of the castrated boy in the alley, then said, "Jame, something happened last night, here in the neighborhood. A couple of kids were murdered."

Jaimie's eyes widened as she swiped a sip of Frank's Coke. "God. What happened?"

Frank retrieved his stolen soda. "Long story. But they were two boys about your age."

Jaimie rolled her eyes. "Dad...I'll be fine."

Frank locked gazes with his daughter. "Please. Be careful. There's a lot of crazies out there. Kids with earrings in their noses."

She picked up the pen from her book, grinning. "Haven't we been through all this before?"

Nodding in agreement, Frank wondered to what extent he should reveal to her the events of the early morning hours. Of course he had no desire to itemize every weird detail. It would only scare her, and that was something he didn't want to do. Never in the past had Frank revealed to Jaimie the finer details of his investigations, but he always believed it would be wise to teach her some street smarts, let her in on what really went on day to day in the streets of New York. Sure, newspapers shared the outer surface of crime—murders, mayhem (Jaimie had done a fine job of keeping up to date with the Lindsay murder, letting him know exactly what
she
thought), but there was so much more hidden beyond the headlines—burglaries, muggings, thefts, assaults. People ended up in the hospital daily with injuries sustained in these so called 'petty crimes'. Frank wanted to make sure his daughter didn't become a victim of them.

For now, he decided to tell her nothing more. It would only distract her from her studies.

Smiling, he said, "Someday you'll be a parent..."

"...and I'll understand," she finished. "I know. Listen, I have to finish up. I have a test in two hours."

Frank stuffed the rest of the muffin in his mouth and stood up. "Okay, okay, I get the hint," he said, raising his arms in a surrender position. They exchanged smiles and he placed the soda can in the recycle bin under the sink.

He moved to the living room, sat on the couch and dialed Neil at the precinct before he persuaded himself to do otherwise.

"Connor..." His voice was harried and rushed.

"Neil. Frank."

"Frankie. We have a problem."

Talk about cutting to the chase. Oh, that Neil and his tendencies. Frank always taught himself to never accept Neil Connor's panic quite seriously. His partner had a habit of raising the red flags as soon as something struck as a inherent problem. Most of the time those flags never amounted to much more than casual inconsiderables, leaving Frank flustered and annoyed most of the time. Amazing that Neil Connor achieved as much success as he did; Frank always felt he was too panicky for the job.
 

"Neil. I'm off. This better be good."

"Actually, it's bad. Bobby Lindsay made bail."

All of a sudden Frank felt as if the good Lord had struck him with one of those big lightning bolts he carries around with Him. Two months he worked on the case, days twelve hours or longer, slaving and sweating to disclose the proper evidence to put the bastard away.

And to think he had known from the onset that the eighteen year old had sexually maimed his sister.

But he had had to find the evidence to prove it. That had been the hard part.

Bobby Lindsay's methodology had been cunning and conniving, his attack well thought out and executed. As a result, hardly any circumstantial evidence turned up—at least enough the police could work with. No fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime, the suitcase Carey was found in, her clothing, skin, everything—printless.